100 Situations Between Friends
by KylaRyan
Summary: Holmes, Watson, 100 prompts, and KylaRyan...here's hoping that the world is ready for what happens next! Better Summary inside.
1. End

**Introduction: **Using a prompt table from a livejournal community, this is a series of 100 one-shots, each at least 200 words in length. Warning(s) and author's note(s) will be issued on a per-chapter basis. Prompts will not be used in the order that they are listed in the prompt table. Rating is due to the fact that at least one of the prompts in the table have developed negative connotations since the Victorian Era.

* * *

**Title: **Supposed to End

**A/N: **This one was written for prompt #4--The End. Seemed all too fitting to my mind to do this particular prompt first.

"Where's the doctor, Mister Holmes?" Alistair Morris demanded, his pistol aimed at the detective's chest.  
"Safe in his bed at Baker Street, Morris," Sherlock Holmes replied.  
"I am surprised to see you here all alone without the doctor, Mister Holmes," Morris continued, as if Holmes hadn't spoken. "He is unwell, isn't that so?"  
"What does it matter to you where Watson is?!"  
"Because you walked so willingly into my trap, Mister Holmes," Morris explained with all the patience of a saint. "And I am not so foolish as to presume that you are so ignorant of my methods as to walk unawares into my trap."  
"You threatened Watson's life if I did not come alone. What else did you expect me to do? Bring Watson with me into certain danger?" Holmes demanded hotly.  
Morris laughed.  
"I do not see what is so funny, Morris," Holmes remarked coldly.  
"The good doctor will soon find the blushing lass he's been chasing after of late to be quite the _femme fatale_, Mister Holmes. And it's all thanks to your need to keep him out of harm's way," he explained.  
"Tyglin Primrose," Holmes breathed.  
Morris nodded.  
"My daughter, from my late wife's first marriage," he said. "Really, Mister Holmes, I am quite surprised that you weren't at all suspect of her at all."  
"There was no reason to," Holmes reluctantly admitted.  
Watson would die, and not at his side. This was not how it was supposed to end.  
And it was all his fault.


	2. Entrapment

**Title: **Cornered

**A/N: **There's a terrible pun in this one, involving hounds. There's also a cliffhanger ending as well. Response to Prompt #78--Entrapment.

Holmes swore as he was brought up short by the cold stone of the great wall that encircled the manor.  
Watson, gasping for breath, looked up at him in the moonlight.  
"What--gasp--is it?" he wheezed.  
"They've cornered us, Watson," Holmes growled.  
"They haven't released the hounds yet, Holmes, we still have a chance of slipping past them in the dark," Watson pointed out.  
"It is only a matter of time before they release the hounds, Watson," Holmes replied. "And we will not have any hope of escaping the grounds before the hounds are loosed."  
"Well, we won't know for sure unless we try, Holmes," Watson insisted, unwilling to just give up.  
The baying of hounds on the hunt sent chills down their spines.  
"It was nice knowing you, Holmes," Watson whispered.  
"Whatever happened to 'We're going to make it, Holmes'?"  
"I'm just saying it in case we don't make it and I don't get a chance later," Watson said defensively.  
"Do you think you can climb up this wall?" Holmes asked as though Watson hadn't spoken.  
"Nice change of subject," the doctor observed dryly.  
"It is...well, can you?"  
"May be," Watson admitted thoughtfully. "Is it our only choice?"  
"Seems to be."  
"Then I guess I'll have to--" Watson began to say, but the rest of the sentence was lost as the ground suddenly gave way beneath his feet.


	3. Deaf

**Title: **All is Silence

**A/N: **Warning, this is an AU of DYING. Oh, and I changed Smith's pathogen from what it is in the original story to something _WAY_ more fun. Response to Prompt #7--Deaf.

"It was quite a hard blow he took, Mister Holmes," the youthful Doctor Matthew Angstrum said.  
"Will he wake up?" Holmes asked again.  
"Well...maybe."  
"Maybe?" Holmes echo'd.  
"The brain is very complex, Mister Holmes," Angstrum's colleague (and very likely his boss), Doctor Leroy McGee, explained, leaping to his fellow doctor's rescue. "He might never wake up, or he might wake up at any moment, completely fine."  
"Or he might wake up unable to move," Holmes muttered.  
McGee grimly nodded.  
The silence that hung in the air following the detective's words were deafening.

* * *

"Holmes!" he cried out in his nightmare, thrashing violently.  
"Watson, I'm here," Holmes said soothingly, despite knowing that his words would go unheard.  
He didn't know why he did it, but he suddenly reached out and clasped Watson in the shoulder as warmly as he could manage, suppressing a shiver at the heat emanating from his friend's fever-racked body.  
Somehow, the physical contact was louder than his voice, for Watson responded to his touch, calming his fevered mind.  
A few long hours later, the doctor called his name with the voice of a sick child on the mend.  
"I'm here, Watson," the detective said, his hand once again on his friend's shoulder.  
"You should get some rest in a proper bed," he said softly.  
"And give you a chance to sneak out of bed? Not a chance," Holmes replied, his heart warmed with the knowledge that Smith's dreadful fever would not kill his friend.  
Watson weakly smiled at his friend before pointing out that he was no where strong enough to be able to even get out of bed _with_ help, let alone under his own power.  
"Enteric fever takes a lot of a man, Holmes," he said, speaking from experience.  
"Enteric fever?" Holmes echo'd dumbly.  
"The disease Smith infected me with, Holmes, I've had it before."  
"But he called it 'typhoid fever'," the detective objected.  
"Typhoid is another name for it, yes," Watson explained before stifling a great yawn of exhaustion.  
"Pardon me, Watson, but this discussion can wait until later. Right now, you need your rest," Holmes declared.


	4. Puncture

**Title: **Creative Abuses

**A/N: **Warning, this is an AU of DYING. Oh, and I changed Smith's pathogen from what it is in the original story to something _WAY_ more fun. Response to Prompt #86--Puncture. Second of Three in this arc.

Watson woke several hours later to find himself alone in his darkened room. He could hear Holmes' voice drifting up from the sitting room.  
"He's resting, Lestrade," Holmes' voice declared.  
A soft murmur--Lestrade's reply, Watson supposed--spoke.  
"He needs his rest," Holmes snapped. "Your questions will do him no good."  
Watson smiled to himself at Holmes' over-protectiveness of him before he drifted off to sleep...  


* * *

As soon as Inspector Lestrade finally left, Holmes raced back upstairs to Watson's room. The sudden arrival of Holmes' presence in the room woke Watson.  
"Hey, Holmes," Watson said drowsily.  
"How are you feeling, my fellow?" Holmes asked, sitting down in a chair beside Watson's bed.  
"Too tired to sleep," Watson yawned.  
"You need to rest, but you also need your fluids," Holmes remarked, pouring water into a glass from the pitcher on Watson's nightstand and handing the glass to Watson.  
The doctor took the glass from the detective and took a sip of the cool, refreshing liquid.  
"Holmes, would you tell me what happened?" Watson asked suddenly.  
Holmes winced. He didn't want to admit to his friend that he had lost control of his emotions while trying to convince Smith to provide the cure for his pathogen.  
"Holmes?" Watson asked. "Are you alright?"  
"I'm fine, Watson," Holmes replied. "It's just that I'm not sure where to begin."  
"Begin at the beginning, Holmes," Watson suggested.  
Seeing the wisdom in his friend's suggestion, Holmes started at the beginning...  


* * *

_One Week Earlier_  
Watson held up the tiny ivory box that had come in that day's post while he was away at his practice as he spoke.  
"Are you pretending to love yet another innocent maid, Holmes?" the doctor demanded.  
His friend, deep in thought, did not reply as he smoked his pipe.  
Watson shook his head as he opened the little box, his curiosity getting the better of him.  
He exclaimed--more out of surprise than pain--when the warm, moist tip of a hidden spring pricked his hand, dropping the box with a loud crash as ivory pieces scattered across the sitting room floor.  
Holmes looked up at Watson, a cry of rebuke dying unspoken on his lips as his sharp mind pieced together what had happened.  
Hazel eyes met frightened grey.  
"Did it prick you?" Holmes whispered in dread, his voice easily carrying across the room.  
"Yes," replied Watson, confused by Holmes' behavior. "But it's only a simple spring, broken as a result of rough handling in the post, Holmes. Nothing to be worried about."  
"On the contrary, Watson," Holmes replied, a grim light coming to his eyes. "You have discovered first hand how Culverton Smith kills his victims."  
Watson's blood ran cold at the detective's words, he remembered how poor Joan Isley, the maid who had come to Holmes with the wild claim that her master used his beloved diseases to commit murder, had taken gravely ill and died two days later.  


* * *

_The Present_  
Holmes paused in his retelling, noting that the doctor had fallen asleep.  
"Sleep well, Watson," he said softly before leaving the room.


	5. Blow

**Title: **Take It Too Far

**A/N: **Warning, this is an AU of DYING, with some mild violence. Oh, and I changed Smith's pathogen from what it is in the original story to something _WAY_ more fun. Response to Prompt #39--Blow. Third of Three in this arc.

104.5  
Holmes swore at the glass object in his hand.  
Watson's fever was getting higher.  
"Holmes....Miss Isley, what....Murray, hand me....a bullet....Holmes, please," murmured the fevered occupant of Doctor John Watson's bed.  
Holmes was only able to catch snatches of what his friend was mumbling in his fever dreams, but it was enough for his imagination to form graphic images of the fevered demons that held Watson's mind in their thrall.  
As he placed a damp cloth on Watson's forehead to try and break his fever, Holmes' control finally snapped as the doctor whimpered, pleading for Holmes to come and rescue him, unaware that he was trapped in a world Holmes could not enter.  
"Make sure he doesn't die!" the detective shouted at his landlady as he raced past her on the stairs.  
"Mister Holmes, where are you going?" Mrs. Hudson demanded.  
"To find Smith!" Holmes helpfully replied.  
Mrs. Hudson shook her head, muttering about the foolishness of her tenants as she took Holmes' place at Watson's bed, ready to do battle with the disease foolish enough to infect one of her tenants.  


* * *

Culverton Smith looked up from the specimen he'd been studying under his microscope as a tall, thin figure burst unannounced and uninvited into his lab.  
"I'm sorry, sir, but he insisted," gasped his loyal manservant and Joan Isley's twin brother, Darren Isley, from behind the intruder.  
"I'm sure he did," Smith remarked drily, before turning to face his unwelcome guest. "And who are you, sir?"  
"I am Sherlock Holmes," the man replied boldly. "And you are the man who has sent my biographer to his death bed."  
"You have my condolences, Mister Holmes, but I am a doctor, not a murderer," Smith coolly replied, silently signalling to Darren Isley to go get a constable.  
"You are no doctor, Smith," Holmes growled, drawing closer to the focus of his anger. "A doctor does no harm."  
"I am as much a doctor as your biographer," spat Smith. "How much harm has he caused others? Certainly more harm than I have, Mister Holmes."  
Holmes lunged at Smith with a strangled cry.  
Without the calming presence of Watson to hold him back, Holmes beat Smith to within an inch of his life.  
By the time Darren Isley returned with a constable, Holmes had beaten Culverton Smith into a bloody, unconscious pulp.  
Holmes struggled against the constable, yelling abuse at the unconscious Smith. He nearly dislocated both shoulders trying to escape from the handcuffs the constable had put on him, his anger was so great.  


* * *

"Inspector?" called a hesitant voice. Lestrade looked up from the paperwork he was filling out.  
"What is it, Constable Mackenzie?" he asked.  
"It's Mister 'Olmes, sir, 'e's askin' fer yew," the young man replied.  
"Well, send him in then," Lestrade commanded.  
Mackenzie hesitated for a moment, before he said, "Oi can't, sir."  
"Why ever not!?" exclaimed Lestrade in annoyance.  
"'E's been arrested fer assault, an' 'e insists on only speakin' wif yew 'bout it," the constable explained.  
Lestrade swore, feeling the beginnings of a headache, the sort only one man in all of London could induce.  


* * *

"So, why in blazes did you think it was a _good_ idea to beat up a man?" the ferret-faced inspector demanded.  
"Watson's dying of one of that madman's diseases," Holmes simply replied.  
Lestrade groaned.  
"Holmes, it is not your place to mete out justice," he informed the detective.  
"Watson's going to die, and it's all my fault," Holmes said, as though he hadn't heard the inspector.  
Not a good sign.  
"He wouldn't want you to throw your life away like this, not even for his sake."  
"I could have prevented him from opening that bloody box."  
Had Holmes finally crossed the line into insanity?  
Lestrade was prevented from any further grim thoughts of a like nature by an interruption in the form of Constable Mackenzie, who handed him a telegram addressed to 'G. Lestrade' from 'M. Holmes'.  
_That's all I need, Mister Holmes' brother getting involved in this mess_, Lestrade mentally grumbled.  
"What's that?" Holmes warily asked the inspector, talking directly to him for the first time.  
"It's from your brother," Lestrade replied as he scanned the terse missive.  
"What does my brother want with you?"  
"Says that you are to be brought to Baker Street immediately to be released into his custody," Lestrade replied.  
"Baker Street?" the detective echo'd, stunned by the knowledge that his brother was waiting for him there and not at Pall Mall or any of his usual places.  
And then the realization of why such a thing would occur struck him and he felt ill, like he'd just taken a blow to his stomach.  
Watson had gotten worse.


	6. Blizzard

**Title: **White Christmas

**A/N: **Just a bit of playful randomness. My response to prompt #12--Blizzard.

"Mister 'Olmes says yew need ta get up now, Doctor!" Andrew exclaimed as he poked--hard--Watson in his bad shoulder to wake him up.  
"Go away, Holmes," grumbled the doctor, not yet awake enough to realise that Holmes had sent an Irregular in to wake him instead of waking him himself.  
Rather than be offended, Andrew found this to be hilarious.  
"Oi'm not Mister 'Olmes!" he laughed, as he spotted something that gave him an idea.  


* * *

Holmes looked up in surprise as a dripping wet Irregular came down the stairs from Watson's room.  
"Yew didn't tell me Doctor Watson could make water do 'is biddin'!" Andrew informed him.  
"He can't."  
But Andrew wasn't convinced. Even so, he dropped the subject for the time being, figuring that he wouldn't be able to convince the detective without proof.  
"Anyways," the Irregular said, "th' doctor says tha' Oi'm ta tell yew tha' 'e's up now an' will be down shortly. 'E also said something else, but Oi can't remember wot it was now."  
"No client, Holmes?" called a voice from behind Andrew, up on the stairs.  
The Irregular jumped and scampered off downstairs to see if "Mrs. 'Udson 'ad anything fer a 'ungry lad", leaving Holmes alone to face a grumpy Watson.  
"Unless you know something I do not, I have no client, Watson," the detective replied, hoping that the truth would save him.  
"I figured as much, since Andrew claimed that you referred to your latest client as 'Father Winter'," Watson blithely remarked. "Speaking of which, why did you have Andrew wake me up, if not because of a client?"  
"What would you say if I told you it is because it's snowing on Christmas Day?" Holmes asked, sounding completely sincere.  
"Who are you and what have you done with my friend?" Watson demanded with a teasing smirk.  
"I am hurt that you believe me incapable of the softer emotions, Doctor," Holmes shot back with a false air of hurt.  
Of course, Watson thought he was being serious.  
"Sorry, Holmes, I thought--" he began to say, but Holmes interrupted him.  
"No, no, Watson, I was only teasing you," he quickly said.  
"Oh."  
"But I know you love fresh snow so much, Watson, and I figured you'd not mind being woken early to see it," he continued.  
"Why did you send Andrew to wake me, then?" Watson asked shrewdly.  
"Well, I am not a fool. I don't want to get wet. There are much more worthier ways to catch a cold than by waking you," explained the detective.  
Watson chuckled as he peered out the sitting room window out onto the snow-covered street outside.  
"Holmes, it's a blizzard outside!" he exclaimed in dismay.  
"I thought snow was considered to be romantic," Holmes teased.  
"Not when it's blinding you," Watson clarified.  
"But it's still snow!" Holmes insisted.  
"Holmes, you've made your point."  
"What point?" Holmes demanded, confused.  
"Exactly," Watson declared with a smirk. "Happy Christmas, Holmes."


	7. Apparition

**Title: **Lost and Found

**A/N: **Warning, this contains supernatural elements. My response to prompt #92--Apparition.

Holmes mulled over what he had seen in the weeks that followed his dramatic rescue of Watson from the insane Alistair Meeks.  
"Holmes?" Watson asked one day, concerned by his friend's introspection.  
"Hmm?" Holmes replied.  
"Is something wrong?" the doctor asked.  
"I'm not sure," Holmes admitted.  
"How can that be? Either it is or it isn't, there's no inbetween," Watson objected.  
"Remember what I told you about the events that led up your rescue?" Holmes asked.  
Watson nodded.  
"Well I neglected to mention that I was led to Meeks' house by a beautiful woman who I would be willing to swear was your late wife, if I didn't know that she was dead," Holmes admitted.  
"And you are trying to track this woman down?" Watson guessed.  
Holmes wordlessly nodded.  
"I don't think you will ever be able to find her, Holmes."  
"Oh?" Holmes bristled at Watson's words of doubt in his ablities.  
"You may scoff, Holmes, but I think it _was_ her," the doctor explained.  
"I could not have seen a ghost," Holmes declared.  
"Holmes, it's the only _logical_ explanation with the facts we have," Watson patiently pointed out.  
"A twin sister or a cousin is much more plausible, Watson," Holmes desperately insisted.  
Watson shook his head.  
"Sorry, Holmes, but Mary has no family left in the world," he informed him.  
"I could not have been mistaken though," Holmes stated, as though Watson had accused him of falsehood.  
"Holmes, there are things in this world that we are not meant to understand," Watson said soothingly.  
"But everything can be explained logically," Holmes insisted.  
"When we have all of the facts, or at the very least, a good portion of the facts," Watson observed. "And in this case, we do not have enough of the facts at our disposal to explain it. And I suspect that we never will."  
"So it's only unexplainable because we lack enough details to explain it logically?" Holmes asked.  
Watson nodded.  
"Thank you, Watson, I have to say that you must be right in this matter," Holmes declared.  
"I do hope that you won't be sulking as a result," Watson remarked.  
"I already have a small case to work on, if you're interested in coming along," Holmes replied.  
"Oh?"  
"A cat burglar turned murderer for hire," Holmes explained.  
"Sounds promising," Watson observed. "I think I shall come along with you on this case, Holmes."


	8. Threat

**Title: **Scarlet Letters

**A/N: **Will probably write a sequel to this one when I figure out what Watson's reply would be (Suggestions are welcome). Response to prompt #17 Threat. Also, this story has nothing to do with KCS' FINA/EMPTY AU trilogy, I swear.

_Drop the case or you will regret it.--JM_  
The message had been written with ink so red it looked like fresh blood.  
Even though he knew full well what would be done to make him regret if he continued with the case, Sherlock Holmes would not drop this case.  
He could not allow his emotions to get in the way, not even once.  
Protecting his friend from harm by obeying the demands of this murderer would only open the door for other criminals to do the same. Some might even skip sending a warning letter and jump straight to kidnapping the doctor, or worse.  
So what was he going to do? He had to do something to protect Watson, to prevent this murderer from carrying out his threat.  
The sound of footsteps on the stairs below alerted him to the coming of Mrs. Hudson with breakfast.  
"You are going to eat, Holmes," growled the occupant of the other armchair.  
"I am on a case, Watson," objected Holmes. "Digesting our landlady's cooking will only serve to interfere in its prompt solution."  
"Not digesting it will result in the same outcome, Holmes," Watson shot back. "You haven't eaten a single morsel for nearly three days straight."  
Further words between them went unsaid with the arrival of Mrs. Hudson.  
"Now, Mister Holmes, you must at least have some of this lovely toast," she declared as she laid out the breakfast things. "Or I will find some way of making you eat."  
Her threat was punctuated with a glare that dared Holmes to give her the opportunity to follow through on her words.  
Holmes didn't give her that chance, wisely deciding to eat, if only to avoid the embarrassment that her threat would entail for him.  
After Mrs. Hudson had left them to their breakfast, Watson asked, "May I ask you something about this case, Holmes?"  
A little disconcerted by the doctor's request, Holmes said it was fine by him.  
"When were you going to tell me that the murderer was sending you threatening letters?"  
If Holmes had had any theories about what Watson had wanted to ask him about, none of them would have involved the letters. He hadn't even been aware that Watson knew about their existence!  
"I had hoped to avoid mentioning them at all to you," Holmes shamefully admitted.  
"How many times do I have to tell you--" Watson began, but Holmes cut him off.  
"I haven't even come up with a satisfactory way of keeping you out of danger, Watson," Holmes interjected. "I am not going to drop this case, even if I was able to."  
"Is my life worth so little to you?" Watson demanded as Holmes took a bite of toast.  
The detective nearly choked on his toast at the doctor's words.  
"Do you think that I don't _want_ to drop this case!?" he snarled.


	9. Misty

**Title: **Fall

******A/N: **I am not a native speaker of Dutch, nor am I fluent in Dutch. Response to Prompt #23. Misty. And the formatting is wonky today...not in the mood to fight with it.

_Tears blurred his vision as he stared down at raging waters far below.  
"Holmes!" he shouted, hoping for an answer.  
But the only answer he got was his cries echoing back at him through the mists of the grief that enveloped him.  
Holmes was gone.  
_

_

* * *

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a pair of curious blue eyes, the eyes of a young Dutch shepherd.  
"Bent u goed, meneer?(1)" the shepherd asked.  
Holmes wasn't fluent in Dutch, but he did know enough of the language to understand what he was being asked(2).  
"I believe I am," Holmes replied, but the shepherd gave him a dubious look.  
"U ziet nu een arts over uw hoofd, meneer(3)," the shepherd observed. "Er is een Engels arts verblijf in het hostel, een zeer vriendelijk en goed mens. Hij was zo aardig voor mij en mijn Katja(4)."  
Watson!_  
"Would you take me to see this English doctor?" Holmes asked.  
"Ja, certainly."

* * *

"Dokter Watson?(5)" called a beautiful, female voice.  
"What is it, Miss Nissen?" Watson asked as he looked up from the breakfast he was forcing himself to eat.  
"My brother Bruno found a badly injured Englishman out on the hills," Katja Nissen replied in near-perfect English.  
_Could it be Holmes? No, not likely._  
"Let me get my bag, then," Watson said. Holmes or not, he could not refuse a man in need.

* * *

"Where is the patient?" demanded a welcome voice.  
He would have called out in joy at the sound, but he was too weak to even form the first syllable of his friend's name.  
"Over here, in my bed, Dokter," answered the female voice--she'd introduced herself as Katja, the shepherd's sister.  
"Ik vond hem in de buurt van de watervallen, Dokter(6)," said the shepherd--Holmes couldn't remember his name.  
The blood red mists that clouded his vision cleared as something damp--a wash cloth?--cleaned the dried blood from his face with the gentle touch only Watson would use on a stranger.  
As grey eyes met hazel, recognition and joy gleamed in both.  
"This place has it out for me, Watson," he weakly declared.  
It was worth the pain to say that, Holmes decided, when Watson laughed at his words.

1. "Are you alright, sir?"  
2. Dutch is a Germanic language, just like German and English.  
3. "You should see a doctor about your head, sir."  
4. "There's an English doctor staying at the hostel, a very kind and good man. He was so kind to me and my Katja."  
5. "Doctor Watson?"  
6. "I found him near the falls, Doctor."


	10. A Close Shave

**Title: **Close to You

******A/N: **Warning, contains religious elements. Response to Prompt #16. A Close Shave.

There was no way that his medicine could save him this time. He knew it, the doctors and the nurses knew it. But he wasn't going to let go of his friend without a fight.  
If medicine couldn't save him, what else was there to try?  
"Pray," said a voice, interrupting his grim thoughts.  
He looked up into the hazel eyes of a young nurse he'd never seen before.  
"God is always listening," the nurse informed him.  
"Who are you, miss?" he asked.  
"Oanez(1) Smythe, sir," the strange woman replied. "Today is my first day here. And you are?"  
"Sherlock Holmes," he replied.  
"Really? Where's Doctor Watson then?" she challenged.  
Holmes winced at the question, unable to hide his pain at her question.  
"Oh," the nurse said. "He's why you're here then. What's wrong with him?"  
'She is so like Watson,' he mused before he answered Miss Smythe's question.  
"He was shot in the chest," he said. "He's lost a lot of blood, and the doctors don't think he'll survive the night, let alone surgery."  
"The bullet's still in his chest?" the nurse asked.  
Holmes nodded.  
"Well, that's good."  
Holmes gave her a look that conveyed his opinion on that particular statement.  
"If the bullet's still in his body, then there's less tissue damage to deal with," Miss Smythe quickly explained.  
"Less chance of infection, too," guessed Holmes.  
Miss Smythe nodded.  
"But--" Holmes began to object--infection was the least of his concerns if Watson's heart didn't have enough blood to pump--, but the nurse interrupted him.  
"Of course, that's not the only issue, I know. Do you know the trajectory of the bullet?"  
"Yes, but I'd have to show it to you," Holmes replied.  
"That's not a problem," she replied. "I'm sure they won't mind us shooting a corpse to see what damage was done to the doctor(2)."  
"Shooting a corpse?" Holmes echo'd.  
"They are very tolerant of eccentrics here. I could get away with actual murder if I were so inclined," she explained.  
"We'd still need a gun, preferably the same one that shot Watson," Holmes pointed out.  
Miss Smythe pulled something out of her pocket.  
"He was shot with his own revolver, wasn't he?" she asked, holding Watson's service revolver out to him.  
"You've handled guns before," Holmes observed as he took the revolver from her.  
"Grew up 'round them," she admitted. "How'd you figure that out?"  
"From the way you handed the gun to me," he admitted.  
The look of awe-struck admiration he received reminded him of Watson.  
"Well, let's go save the doctor," Miss Smythe declared.

1. Breton diminutive of Agnes.  
2. Yes, this is a nod to STUDY.


	11. Sting

**Title: **Morphine Dreams

******A/N: **Response to Prompt #25. Sting.

Where was he?  
"Holmes!"  
Who was Holmes?  
"I can't carry you by myself, and he's in worse shape than you."  
Who was that speaking?  
"I would take him out first, if you weren't lying on top of him, in the bloody way!"  
Something bad must have happened.  
"Mind his head, he's probably got a nasty concussion!"  
He didn't have a concussion, he had a headache.  
"Doctor? I think he's regaining consciousness."  
Doctor? Was he in a hospital then?  
"What's his name?"  
He didn't know.  
"Doctor Watson, you're trapped under a heavy beam of iron. They're going to lift it up and I am going to carefully move you out from under it."  
So, not in a hospital then.  
Suddenly the world exploded in brilliant bursts of pain.  
He cried out, begging the pain to stop, but he couldn't be sure whether he had cried out or not, as he couldn't remember hearing his own voice. He figured that he did when his hand was grasped firmly by...Holmes!  
Memory flooded his aching brain, as he gasped out a plea for Holmes to be alright.  
"I'm alright, Watson."  
Was Holmes crying?  
"It's the dust."  
Holmes was lying, he was sure of it.  
"The doctor is going to give you some morphine so that you won't be in pain every time the ca makes a sharp turn."  
He was afraid. He didn't want to wake up alone.  
"Don't worry, I'll be with you every step of the way."  
Even in surgery?  
"Even in surgery."  
What was taking so long with the morphine, he wanted to get to the hospital as quickly as possible so that Holmes could get his injuries taken care of.  
Holmes chuckled.  
"He's got to make sure he gives you the correct dose before he can administer the stuff. He's not as experienced a doctor as you, though he is nearly as good a doctor as you."  
"I was at Kandahar during the second Afghan war, actually."  
"The voice was too young to belong to a veteran of that war.  
"I wasn't there as a doctor, obviously."  
He barely felt the sting of the needle entering his arm.  
"I was only a child, born in Kandahar in the relative peace that reigned between the first and second Afghan wars to missionaries."  
Blessed, pain-free darkness descended, blocking out all of the world, giving him respite from the pain.


	12. Blood

**Title: **Sharing is Caring

******A/N: **Warning, contains violence. Response to Prompt #84, Blood.

Everything reeked of blood. Sweat stung his eyes, and the sound of gunfire was getting louder by the second.  
Then the retreat began in earnest.  
Those who were foolish enough to linger long enough to fill their canteens were the first to fall to Ghazi blades and jezail bullets.  
A dog and a handful of men brought up the rear of the retreat, every one of them soaked in the blood of friend, foe, and self. Even the dog had been wounded.  
A rifle fired and one of the men fell with a cry.  
The man had already been shot in the leg and had been limping along, supported by a comrade, when the bullet took him down.  
Surely he was dead?  
But apparently not, for the man who had been helping him along ripped up his own shirt and wrapped it around his friend's shoulder as a makeshift bandage.  
Then he lifted the wounded soldier into his arms and resumed moving to Kandahar and to the safety the walled city represented, the agonized cries of the wounded ringing in his ears.  
And then nature went completely insane as a great wall of water enveloped the retreating men.  
He was cold and wet for all too brief a time before he was once again hot and dry.  
The other soldiers appeared to be similarly afflicted, for they were beginning to feel the effects of a miles long march through the deserts of Afghanistan.  
Long, arid hours past, and he watched as men all around him fell prey to a new deadly foe--dehydration.  
Water they could ill afford to lose was lost through still bleeding wounds and the sweat pouring off their bodies.  
_"106.1. We've got to lower his temperature!"_  
Who was that? Was that God speaking?  
_"Sorry, Holmes, but we've got to lower your fever and the compresses aren't working fast enough."_  
He didn't have long to wonder at the strange voice before he was thrown roughly out of Afghanistan's arid heat to the damp chill of the Thames.  
He struggled to get out of the ice cold water, but strong hands, the hands of a surgeon-writer, held him down.  
_"Don't you dare die on me, Holmes."_  
The command was one Sherlock Holmes was quite willing to obey.


	13. Lunatic

**Title: Play Chicken**

******A/N: **In Wonderland, everyone's mad. Response to Prompt #79. Lunatic.

"Are you mad?!" exclaimed the doctor.  
"Not at all," insisted the detective.  
"He will _kill_ you, Holmes."  
"That's why you will be there."  
"Then he will kill us both on sight. He said that you were to come alone."  
"And my reply was that I would be only as alone as he, remember?"  
"I also recall us getting shot at after you said that as well," Watson pointed out.  
"Well, he _is_ a certified lunatic," Holmes observed.  
"Which is why he should be left to _professionals_, like Lestrade."  
"You must be crazy to suggest that Lestrade is a professional capable of handling Roger Mann."  
Watson sighed, realizing that he was not going to get through his friend's thick skull the danger he was needlessly putting himself in.  
"I don't like this plan," he grumbled. "But since you'll go after Mann no matter what I say, I'd rather be there by your side than anywhere else."

* * *

_that evening_  
"Where is Mann?" grumbled Holmes.  
Watson only shrugged.  
"Perhaps he's saner than we think he is."  
Holmes scoffed at that.  
"Even if he was sane when he first arrived at Bethlehem(1), Watson, it's almost certain that he's not any longer."  
Gunfire rang out through the night air as a bullet struck the cobblestones near Watson's feet.  
"I don't think Mann's going to be talking to us tonight," Holmes remarked as he grabbed Watson's good arm and pulled him to safety out of the line of fire.  
"Have I mentioned recently how much I hate this plan?" Watson growled at his friend.  
"Several times now."  
"I'll say it again anyways--I _HATE_ this plan of yours."  
"Hate is a strong word, is it not?" Holmes remarked.  
"Not strong enough to describe how I feel about your plan, Holmes."  
"Clearly, since you've felt the need to say so every chance you get."  
"I don't care what you or anyone else says, you are a proper lunatic, Holmes."

1. Bethlehem Mental Hospital, sometimes referred to as "Bedlam".


	14. Hide

**Title: Hide and Seek**

******A/N: **Response to Prompt #1. Hide.

It was a bright, sunny spring day in 1881. Holmes was in Sussex on a case. He had invited Watson to come along...  
_"I can't go, Holmes," the doctor had said sadly.  
"Why not?" the detective had demanded.  
"I'm covering a colleague's practice all next week so that he can take his wife on a holiday for her birthday."  
"Can't you get someone else to do it?" Holmes had begged, but Watson had shook his head.  
"I wish I could, but I can't."_  
He should have tried harder to get Watson to come along with him.  
Then he wouldn't have gotten handcuffed to a hitching post like he had been.  
Watson would blame himself if he died, Holmes knew. Even though it wasn't his fault, not at all.  
"Holmes!" cried a welcome, if unexpected, voice.  
"Watson! What in blazes are you doing here?"  
"I'm here to rescue you, of course."  
"What took you so long then?"  
"I haven't played hide and seek since I was a young lad," Watson replied.  
"I am not a child," Holmes growled, reading between the lines.  
"You pout like one," Watson observed with a half-hidden smirk.  
"Just get on with it, please," grumbled the detective.  
"As you wish," the doctor replied.


	15. Horny

**Title: Lessons in Biology**

******A/N: **Warning, can be considered AU. Response to Prompt #33. Horny.

"Holmes, what is that?" I asked, referring to the amphibian he was carefully holding in his hands.  
"I believe that this is a horny toad, Watson," the detective replied.  
"I was not aware that you were familiar with the wildlife of the American desert," the doctor remarked.  
"There are many things that I am familiar with that you are not aware of," Holmes replied.  
"Oh?" Watson asked, his curiosity piqued by his friend's claim. "Such as?"  
"Fatherhood," Holmes coolly replied.  
"You, the man who would never marry, a father?" Watson challenged, unable to believe Holmes' claim.  
"We were both young and foolish, unwilling to marry, yet deeply in love," Holmes began, a distant glint coming to his grey eyes as he remembered the greatest folly of his youth. "A distant cousin of Charles Dickens, was my young Victoria."  
Watson wasn't sure if Holmes was being serious or not, so he chose to remain silent and let his friend speak freely. But he wasn't silent for long.  
"It was on May Day that we--" Holmes continued.  
"Now, really, Holmes," Watson interrupted.  
"What, Watson?"  
"You can't possibly think that I would believe you capable of such a thing."  
"You believe me to be unable to love a woman in such a manner?" Holmes asked. "You believe me to be a deviant, a lover of my own kind?"  
Watson blushed in embarrassment as he hurriedly clarified that he hadn't meant it like that.  
"Relax, Watson," the detective said soothingly, forgetting about the toad in his hand. "I was only teasing you."  
"A cruel joke, Holmes."  
"You set yourself up--ouch!"  
"Holmes, are you alright? What happened? Is that_ blood _on your face!?"  
"I'm fine, Watson. That toad just squirted blood out of its eyes at me."  
"It what!?"  
"I think it's a defense mechanism."  
"It _what_!?"  
"Watson, you sound like a member of Scotland Yard's finest when you repeat yourself like that."  
"It _WHAT_!?"


	16. Doctor

**Title: Playing Doctor**

******A/N: Wasn't going to draw in the "I'm a doctor, not a..." thing, but...well, I couldn't resist it**. Response to Prompt #83. Doctor. 

"Where's the doctor?" Lestrade asked, noting Watson's absence from the sitting room.  
"He's not feeling well," Holmes lied--not that the Inspector could tell. "Why? Do you need him and not me?"  
Lestrade shook his head.  
"No, I have need of you, though his medical training might be of use," he replied.  
"Oh?" Holmes asked.  
"It's an odd thing, Mister Holmes. We had arrested a Rose Campbell for the murder of her husband, when she simply vanished from the cell we'd put her in."  
"Vanished?"  
"Her cell was still locked when we discovered she was missing, and there was no sign that she had left by any natural means."  
"Congratulations, Inspector, it sounds as though you have arrested a ghost."  
"If you are going to mock me, Mister Holmes, then I will leave."  
"You might as well leave, since I can't take this case."  
"Your sympathies lie with the criminals?" Lestrade guessed.  
Holmes shook his head.  
"Not at all, Inspector," he replied. "Watson is quite ill and I'd rather not go on a case without him. Besides, Miss Campbell works for the government. You will never find her."  
"The government? But how do you know that?"  
"I can not say anything more than what I have already told you, Inspector," Holmes replied.  
After the inspector left, Holmes raced upstairs to the doctor's room.  
"Watson, it's safe," he called.  
The door opened to reveal the tired figure of Doctor John Watson.  
"I'm a doctor, not a government agent, Holmes," he grumbled.  
The detective grinned at him.  
"I gave you the option of not getting involved in this mess," he pointed out.  
The doctor only dignified that statement with an annoyed groan.


	17. Bed

**Title: Corpse Bride**

******A/N: Warning, contains the following: morgue humor to the nth degree, supernatural elements, references to rape. Also, there is a second layer to this story, inspired by something members of a forum I used to be active in would do to show appreciation for fellow members--propose marriage.** Response to Prompt #73. Bed. 

"Holmes, am I dead?" Watson asked upon regaining consciousness.  
"No, though it was a close thing," Holmes admitted. "Why do you ask?"  
"I can smell rotting flesh."  
"Ah, yes...the bed you're in reeks of it."  
"Did someone die in this bed?"  
"I don't know, I was more concerned with the fact that you'd been poisoned and I only had five minutes or less to administer an antidote," Holmes admitted.  
"It's a lumpy bed," grumbled Watson, his gratitude conveyed by the expression in his hazel eyes.  
"This was the nearest place of safety I could find," Holmes explained by way of apology (he well knew the havoc lumpy beds wrecked on his friend's war wounds). "Unfortunately, it is not as safe as I would like, so we will have to move on in a few hours."  
Watson groaned.  
"I know you need to rest for more than a few hours, but that's all the time we can risk staying here."  
There was a knock on the door to the room.  
Holmes stiffened and placed himself in between the doctor and the door.  
"It's me, Mister Holmes," a soft, female voice called through the heavy, oak door. "I figured you might be wanting something to eat, so I've brought up some bread and cheese. Oh and a pot of fresh tea too."  
Holmes sighed, then carefully opened the door to the room, to reveal a stunning blonde young woman with hazel eyes, a tray of bread and cheese carefully balanced in one hand, a tea service in her other hand.  
"Come in then," growled Holmes.  
"Oh, you're awake, Doctor," the woman exclaimed as she set the trays on the table in the middle of the room. Holmes frowned, as the woman began to fuss over his friend.  
"How are you feeling?" she asked.  
"Much better now that the antidote has had time to work, thank you, Miss..." Watson replied, unsure of the woman's name.  
"Kyla Ryan, Doctor," she informed him.  
Watson nodded in agreement as Kyla handed him a cup of tea.  
"We don't have time to linger here, Miss Ryan," Holmes growled. Watson had a feeling that this wasn't the first time Holmes had informed Kyla of this.  
"And as I told you before, Mister Holmes, you have all the time in the world," Kyla growled right back. "Those thugs who attacked you avoid this place."  
"Why do they avoid your home?" Watson asked.  
"They believe it's haunted by the spirit of the young girl they violated and murdered in this very room," Kyla replied.  
Holmes snorted.  
"No such crime has ever been committed here, Miss Ryan," he observed.  
"According to Scotland Yard," Kyla calmly corrected the detective. "But there was such a crime committed here."  
"How would such a thing go unmarked?" Watson asked, horrified.  
"Without a body, there is no evidence of the crime," she replied.  
Then she was gone, closing the door behind her without a sound.  
A couple of hours later, Inspector Gregson found the doctor and the detective investigating the rotting corpse someone had secreted inside a mattress.  
"Can you read this?" Watson asked, carefully handing a slip of slimy paper to Holmes.  
The detective carefully studied it for a couple of minutes before he replied.  
"It's a telegram form," he said. "She was about to leave her home for the telegraph office to send it off."  
"Who is it addressed to?" Gregson asked, earning a glare from Holmes (who'd known all along that he was there) and causing Watson to jump in surprise (he hadn't).  
"A Bailey Hix," Holmes replied, his voice tinged with his annoyance with the inspector.  
"Hix? That's an odd name," Gregson observed.  
"So's 'Gregson'," muttered Holmes.  
Before the conversation could get any more childish, Watson intervened by asking Holmes to read aloud the rest of the telegram. Which, of course, he did.  
_B STOP Have a proposal for you STOP Marry me? STOP KR FINAL STOP_  
"Holmes, 'KR'?" Watson questioned, for once his mind keeping pace with the detective's.  
"Yes, Watson, you are right," Holmes said.  
"What are you two going on about?" Gregson demanded.  
"Our body and our hostess are the one and the same," Holmes explained.  
"Hostess? No one has lived here since Miss Kyla Ryan disappeared two months back," Constable Fawkes--the local representative of law and order--objected.


	18. Ride

**Title: Race to the Fords**

******A/N: **Response to Prompt #87. Ride. 

He urged the horse on, wishing it would go faster, ignoring the searing bolts of pain that shot through his body as a result.  
The pain was not important. Getting to the Fords before it was too late was. If he failed, if he was too late...He shook his head to clear the morbid thoughts from his mind. Failure was not an option, he would not be too late.  
He could feel every labored movement of his mount's muscles beneath him, as he had not taken the time to saddle up. The horse's sides were slick with sweat, but it was still galloping, not slowing down in the slightest.  
But he knew that it wouldn't be able to keep up the pace he'd set for much longer.  
He didn't see the ditch until it was too late.  
The horse easily cleared the ditch, but it found itself rider-less by the time all four of its hooves were firmly planted on the other side. Confused, the horse looked around until it found the still form of its rider.  
Gunfire rang through the air, startling the horse into a gallop back towards the stables.  
After five minutes or so, a man with a limp and an arm strapped to his chest with a navy blue sling came along the path from the Fords, a revolver in his free hand.  
The man frowned at the sight of the still figure in the ditch.  
"Watson?" the man called out, hoping for an answer. He didn't get one--or so he thought.  
"Dear Lord, Watson, please!" he cried, fearing the worst, as he knelt beside his still friend. "Please still be alive!"  
"Are...you...deaf?" a weak voice rasped, so faint that the detective had to strain his ears to hear it.  
"Can you move?" Holmes asked. What if the doctor was paralyzed?  
"I think so..." Watson hesitantly replied.  
Holmes frowned as he demanded to know whether or not his friend had a concussion.  
"Definitely...but that's...not why...I'm...not...sure 'bout...whether...I can...move."  
"Why then?" He needed to keep him talking, keep him awake until he could figure out a way to get help without leaving his friend's side.  
"Might...have...injured my...back...can feel my....legs though."  
Holmes made a choice.  
"Unless you've got a better idea, I'm going to head back to the manor for help," he informed Watson.  
"Hopkins and...Lestrade...are somewhere...behind me."  
"Think we can wait that long to get you proper medical care?" the detective asked.  
"Don't have...much...of a...choice."  
"Good point."


	19. Cliff

**Title: Stand on the Edge**

******A/N: Warning, AU (Unexpected Series), Female!Watson, Married!Holmes. **Response to Prompt #8. Cliff. 

She was standing on the edge of a great cliff, the roar of the nearby waterfall drowning out all other sounds, unable to move for the paralyzing fear that she was about to fall to her death.  
"Watson."  
Who had called her name? Who could speak louder than the waterfall?  
"Watson, wake up."  
She _was_ awake.  
"Watson, this isn't the time to be lazy._ Please_ wake up."  
Who was this fool who was so convinced that she was asleep?  
"Joanne Hannah Holmes, wake up this minute."  
This time the voice actually _slapped_ her.  
The stinging pain forced her to open eyes she didn't know were closed.  
"Holmes?" she called out.  
"I'm here, Watson," her husband replied, getting up from his chair beside her bed in the hospital.  
"You're a mess, Holmes," Watson observed.  
"Stunning observation, Watson," Holmes remarked with a soft chuckle.  
"What happened?"  
"What do you remember?"  
"I remember running through Lord Henry's manor after his nephew," Watson replied. "My next memory is of waking up here."  
"Joseph Spady wasn't working alone, Watson. You were pushed down a flight of stairs by his mother," Holmes explained.  
"How bad?" Watson feared that the worst had happened, that her fall had caused a miscarriage. She didn't think either of them could handle another miscarriage.  
"Concussion, broken arm, broken leg, and a lot of cuts and bruises."  
"And the baby?"  
"Alive and well."  
Watson let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.  
"Thank God," she whispered.  
"I don't know if God had anything to do with it," replied the detective. "Especially since you landed on top of me."  
"Are you alright?" Watson demanded, guilt rushing through her at the thought that she had likely caused her beloved husband harm.  
"I'm fine."  
"You'd say that even if you were on your deathbed."  
"I _have_ said it on my deathbed."  
"You didn't die of Smith's fever, so I don't think that counts as your deathbed, Holmes."  
"You were sure that I was going to die at the time," Holmes pointed out.  
"No, I didn't," objected Watson.  
"I distinctly recall you yelling at me to get out of my deathbed and start breathing."  
"Panic makes a person say and do crazy things, Holmes," Watson pointed out before realizing that Holmes had been distracting her from worrying about his health. "And quit avoiding the question and tell me what injuries you sustained when I fell on you."  
"He bruised his pride, Doctor," called the familiar--yet unexpected--voice of Watson's partner, Doctor Arthur Conan Doyle, from the door way. "And that's his only injury of note."  
The mental image that Doyle's words brought to Watson's mind were most inappropriate for a woman of her status to have, and she blushed in embarrassment.  
Both Doyle and Holmes noticed her reddening cheeks and they both rightly deduced the cause.  
"I didn't bruise that part of my anatomy!" exclaimed Holmes, shooting a glare at Doyle, who was trying--and for the most part, failing--to hide his ungentleman-like amusement at Watson's misunderstanding.  
"I was not aware that simply being knocked over by a woman was not enough to bruise a man's pride," explained Doyle.  
"Ooooh..." moaned Watson, as she moved her head too fast.  
"Are you alright?" Holmes demanded, taking her hand and squeezing it comfortingly.  
"I was pushed down a flight of stairs onto my husband, how do you think I feel?" grumbled Watson.  
"Like you fell off a cliff?" Holmes asked, causing Watson to wince as she remembered what had happened at those Falls nearly a decade ago, how Holmes had nearly fallen to his death as he clung desperately to a tree that had been growing out of the cliff-face and watched Professor Moriarty fall to his death.  
"I'm sorry, I forgot about--" Watson began, her anger at Holmes evaporating in the face of remembering the day she'd thought she had lost Holmes forever.  
"Of course you forgot, Watson," Holmes interjected. "You hit your head on the way down the stairs and got a concussion. Thinking's painful for you right now."  
"I'm still amazed that you didn't get a concussion too, Mister Holmes, if the witness accounts are anything to go by," Doyle remarked.  
"What?" Watson called, her aches and pains forgotten again.  
"Guess he hasn't told you yet, Doctor, but you only have that concussion because your head connected with his(1)," Doyle replied.  
"Well, he does have a pretty thick skull, Doyle," Watson declared.

1. It is possible for one person to get a concussion from hitting another person in the head and the other person doesn't get a concussion.


	20. News

**Title: Fatherhood**

******A/N: Warning, AU (Unexpected Series), Female!Watson, Married!Holmes, Cross-dressing. **Response to Prompt #75. News.

_from the diary of Sherlock Holmes, entry dated March 13, 1889_  
Watson always had a knack for choosing the most entertaining moments to share happy news with her friends and family, if the numerous anecdotes I was forced to sit through at our wedding reception are anything to go by. And it is through no conscious effort of her own, at least as far as I can tell.  
But of course, as should be obvious to anyone intelligent enough to find this journal of mine (I will not call it a 'diary', no matter what Watson says), there is only one reason why this particular trait of my wife's should be on my mind--she has shared some good news with me today.  
And the content of said news should be obvious as well to any one who has read my previous entries in this particular volume of my private writings, especially those concerning Watson's recent behavior of late.  
As I have no case to occupy my time currently, I spent the morning going through my wardrobe of disguises, while Watson was off doing whatever it is that (lady) doctors do of a morning.  
The first indication that something was amiss was when Watson returned to Baker Street for luncheon. Now, this in and of itself is not unusual, but the fact that she had informed our landlady that she would not be returning to her practice this afternoon. When Mrs. Hudson pressed her for an explanation, Watson lower her voice so that I couldn't overhear her. Whatever Watson told her, Mrs. Hudson's reaction was also not loud enough for me to overhear.  
Watson was probably taking the afternoon off to try to prevent my inevitable descent into the boredom that characterized the doldrums that is my life between cases, at least that was what I figured her motivation for taking time off from her practice so unexpectedly at the time.  
And then she raced up the seventeen steps to our sitting room, full of excited energy.  
"Guess what, Holmes!" she cried, not even giving me a chance to speak as she continued, "We're pregnant!"  
I scowled. _We_ were most certainly _NOT_ pregnant. She was the one who would be cursing me in one of those Eastern languages she's passably fluent in for getting her with child in about nine months. And I told her so.  
"It's a figure of speech, Holmes," she explained.  
"An illogical one," I insisted.  
"We're going to be parents, Holmes, you should be excited," she remarked. "Not grumbling over figures of speech."  
"As a matter of fact, I'm terrified about becoming a father," I admitted, figuring that it would be safer if I was honest with Watson about the matter of parenthood.  
She'd see right through me if I lied, anyways.  
And if Watson was frightening when angry, she had to be absolutely terrifying when angry _AND _pregnant.  
"Why?" she demanded, as she sat down in her usual spot on the sofa.  
"Because I am not meant for fatherhood," I said, wondering whether pregnancy had dulled her usually perceptive mind.  
Could she not see that I was meant to be a consulting detective, not a father?  
"How do you know that you are not cut out to be a father, Holmes?" Watson asked softly. If I didn't know my wife so well, I would have thought that she shared the same fear I was experiencing.  
Absolute poppycock, that idea.  
"Well, look at me. Do I look like I'd make a good father?" I demanded, quashing the idea that Watson was afraid of motherhood.  
To my utter amazement, Watson took one look at me and burst out laughing.  
"What?" I demanded, annoyed that she wasn't taking me seriously.  
"I'm sorry, Holmes, it's just that you're wearing my favorite blue dress," she breathlessly explained once she had stopped laughing.  
"The one I gave you for our first Christmas after we met, I know," I said. "I don't quite understand why that is so funny."  
"You asked me if you looked like you would make a good father, while wearing my favorite dress," Watson explained. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were expecting me to come home today, with news of my health."  
"Oh, I see," I said, smiling at my unintentional irony as I spoke. "Well, I do hope you don't mind me borrowing your dress, I was going through my disguises and this was in there."  
"I would like it back, Holmes."  
"Why? You're not going to be able to wear it anytime soon."  
"Holmes," Watson glared warningly at me.  
"You're pregnant, Watson. This dress will most certainly be too small for you," I insisted, ignoring the warning signs of Watson's temper.  
"Holmes."  
"It's not like I'm going to get blood on it," I continued.  
"Holmes."  
"Honestly, Watson, you didn't miss it after it got mixed in with my disguises, what makes you think you'll miss it now that you know where it is?"  
Unfortunately, now that she was pregnant, her patience with me was much shorter than it usually was, a fact I had wholly forgotten about.  
Pregnancy hadn't slowed her down yet either.  
"Are you alright, Holmes? I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to lose control of my temper and hit you," Watson hurriedly lamented as she knelt over my prone figure, inspecting me for injury. "Nothing broken, no concussion, just a lovely shiner in the morning."  
"Remind me to never get in between you and your clothes ever again," I joked.  
"I told Mrs. Hudson that we were going to celebrate something at Simpson's this evening, and I would like to wear that dress tonight. Unless you want to wear it to dinner?"  
"Very funny."  
"Go change back into your own clothes, Holmes. Mrs. Hudson should be up here with luncheon shortly, and I would like you to be present when I tell her the good news."  
"That you found your favorite dress?" I teased, as I headed for our room to change out of her dress.  
"That we're pregnant, you endearing oaf!" Watson called out after me.  
Mrs. Hudson's reaction to the news was certainly entertaining, but that will have to wait until tomorrow, as Watson is calling me to bed now, and I don't desire to tempt fate for a second time.


	21. Dive

**Title: Look Before Jumping**

******A/N: My medical sensibilities object violently to the point at which I ended this one, so a follow-up is quite likely. **Response to Prompt #43. Dive.

I would never make it far enough from the blazing warehouse to survive the explosion of the second device, I knew, with my medical training.  
I also knew that Holmes was not going to leave me behind to save himself.  
But I was going to try my best to convince the detective to leave me behind, in the futile hope that Holmes would listen to me for once.  
"Holmes," I coughed, my lungs burning from the smoke, "leave me."  
"No, I will not," Holmes coughed in reply, as stubborn as ever.  
"I will not allow you to die saving me," I insisted.  
"Either we both die or we both live, Watson, there is no in-between," my friend insisted.  
"Then surely we shall both die, for there is no way that I will be able to escape the second explosion."  
Without warning, Holmes suddenly turned around, heading back towards the bomb, pulling me with him by my uninjured arm.  
"What in blazes, Holmes?!" I exclaimed in surprise.  
"Do you trust me, Watson?"  
"With my life."  
"Then believe me when I say that you are not going to die today."  
"I don't see how," I admitted as we raced past the bomb.  
"You don't have to see it, Watson, because I saw it," Holmes replied as the rear wall of the warehouse loomed before us out of the smoky haze.  
I dared to hope that Holmes might be right as I saw that there was a door!  
It took all of five seconds for Holmes to pick its simple lock and swing open the door.  
Unfortunately, the rush of fresh air fanned the flames behind us.  
As red-hot tongues of fire engulfed me, my last thought was that I hoped that Holmes at least was spared the painful death of burning alive.  
Then all went black and I knew no more until I regained consciousness in Holmes' arms, afloat in the Thames.  
"Holmes?" I rasped, wondering why I was in the filthy river water.  
"Didn't I say that you weren't dying today?"


	22. Float

**Title: Up a Creek**

******A/N: **Response to Prompt #9. Float.

"How's your hand, old chap?" Holmes asked. "Did the bullet hit you or did it miss?"  
"Unfortunately, it hit right in the middle of my hand, probably shattered all of my metacarpals in the process," Watson replied softly, carefully wrapping his injured hand with the most sanitary option availible to him--his dirty scarf. "I'm sorry I dropped the oar, though."  
"Why? There was no possible way you could have held onto the oar with that hand," Holmes observed.  
"I could have at least caught it with my other hand," Watson pointed out.  
"Your injured shoulder wouldn't allow you to move fast enough," Holmes immediately pointed out, earning a glare from his friend.  
"I'm not a cripple," the doctor growled.  
"I didn't say you were," Holmes calmly observed.  
"But you did say--"  
"What I said was that due to injuries you sustained in the line of duty, you were unable to move fast enough to catch the oar after being shot in the hand. I did not say that you were crippled. In fact, even if you hadn't been injured in that shoulder, I doubt that you would have been able to catch that oar anyways."  
"Are you saying I have slow reflexes?" Watson demanded.  
"I'm saying that you are able to feel pain."  
"Sherlock Holmes, stater of the obvious," Watson muttered.  
Holmes grinned.  
Then he realized that he had dropped his oar as well when Watson had gotten shot.


	23. Lucky

**Title: The Devil's Own Luck**

******A/N: Warning, alternative universe (unexpected), female!Watson. **Response to Prompt #48. Lucky.

His head ached, his muscles ached, his bones ached. All he wanted to do was curl up and sleep off the pain, but he knew that he couldn't do that, not until he had led this thug into the trap he had laid, trusting Lestrade and his men to be able to handle the giant brute chasing him.  
Unfortunately, he hadn't counted on the giant seeing through his disguise so quickly. He desperately prayed that the inspector and his men were ready.  
And then he was stopped short by an angry female voice.  
"Who in blazes do you think you are, running 'bout London with a concussion like that?!"  
Holmes contemplated ignoring the woman, figuring she was either insane or yelling at someone else, but the woman stepped in front of him, blocking his way.  
She was clearly not mad, and was clearly speaking to him.  
"I am Sherlock Holmes," he declared, as he saw out of the corner of his eyes the giant turn into the alley behind him.  
The giant would most certainly see him talking with this woman, and try to use her as leverage against him. "And that man that just turned into this alley is after me."  
"Is he now?" the woman calmly asked, taking something out of her pocket. As it glinted in the moonlight, Holmes realized it was a revolver, of the type wielded by Army soldiers during the recent Anglo-Afghan conflict(1).  
His ears rang with the sound of gunfire, drowning out the cry of the giant as the woman's bullet tore through flesh and bone, crippling him.  
"Is he the only one?" the woman asked, still steely calm, as if she hadn't just shot a man in the knee on the words of a total stranger.  
"Yes," Holmes replied, struggling to remain conscious as the woman went to tend to the man she'd shot.  
The woman looked up from the thug as Inspector Giles Lestrade came running into the alley, followed by his men. They had heard the retort of the woman's revolver. Once the police surgeon had arrived, the woman surrendered the care of the giant to him and focused her full attention on the unconscious detective.  
Lestrade was impressed by how the lady doctor took control of the detective's unconscious body, refusing his offer to take the man to Montague Street(2).  
"No thank you, Inspector," she informed him. "My flat is closer, and he needs to be observed for twenty-four hours."

1. Before you cry foul over a lady doctor serving in the Army during the second Afghan war, I would like to point out that women fought in the American Civil War disguised as men. Admittedly, the women we know of worked as spies without letting on that they were really women disguised as men disguised as women. But I'm figuring that Joanne Watson would likely have disguised herself as a man to get a medical degree and then end up joining the Army. That's my current theory concerning her back story. It may change once I actually starting writing up 'The Unexpected Doctor'.  
2. Holmes lived on Montague Street before coming to Baker Street.


	24. Rain I

**Title: Rolling Thunder (Watson)**

******A/N: This is part one of two, though both parts are actually both in response to the same prompt. I only broke them up here because of artistic reasons. **Response to Prompt #42. Rain.

Watson hated it when it stormed, because then Holmes would be unable to do much of anything he wanted (and enjoyed) to do.  
He couldn't investigate a case, because the stormy weather washed away evidence, entire crime scenes, and generally kept criminals and potential victims safely inside their homes.  
He couldn't do chemical experiments, the violence of the weather outside was not conducive to the delicate touch required for Holmes' experiments.  
Nor could he practice with his revolver, out of respect for the doctor's nerves (though he claimed the sole reason was because he didn't want an unexpected flash of lightning or rumble of thunder spoiling his aim and causing him to hit his Strad or anything else of his(1)).  
His violin was also unavailable, because the instrument was drowned out by the thunder.  
Watson flipped through the book Mycroft had given him the other day, hoping to find a solution to the problem of Sherlock Holmes.

1. After I wrote this particular line, I read it over and I realized that it could be read as though Holmes considered Watson to belong to him. Which he kinda does, _especially_ in the Guy Ritchie film.


	25. Rain II

**Title: Rolling Thunder (Holmes)**

******A/N: This is part two of two, though both parts are actually both in response to the same prompt. I only broke them up here because of artistic reasons. There is a misspelled word in this part because spell checker is unable to suggest the word I'm trying to spell. **Response to Prompt #42. Rain.

Holmes hated when it stormed, because Watson was unable to do much of anything he enjoyed doing (let alone many basic nessacities that most folk took for granted). Watson moved as little as possible during a storm, because he was in pain.  
This meant that Watson couldn't write in his journal nor write up a case. Nor could he do any other sort of writing that Watson did and Holmes tended to ignore for the most part.  
If he wanted something stored on a shelf (it didn't matter if the shelf was high or low), he couldn't stretch his arm out enough to reach it. Usually, Watson would do without, unwilling to burden Holmes with his disability. But if it was something he absolutely needed, or if he was so bored by forced inaction, the doctor would reluctantly swallow his pride and ask his friend for help.  
Holmes hated the rainy days the most for that, for forcing a good man to feel so undignified--even if those feelings of indignity were erroneous in the detective's opinion.  
But what could he do about it?  
He was not a god, he had no power over the weather, over the fates of men, over time itself. He was not able to defy the limitations of mortal medicine and heal damaged tissue.  
There was a solution to the problem of John Watson, Holmes knew. But what that solution was, he did not know. Nor could he divine a starting point to tackle the problem from.  
As much as it irked him to admit it, this puzzle appeared to be one in which he would require Mycroft's assistance to unravel.


	26. Smell

**Title: The Nose Knows**

******A/N: **Response to Prompt #95 Smell.

"You killed Lord Blackwell, Lady Greybeam," declared Holmes.  
"What a fancy theory, Mister Holmes," the lady declared. "But your word is not enough for Scotland Yard to arrest me. And as I recall, your precious mongrel did not lead you to me, but to my brother-in-law's trusted manservant."  
"Phillip Andrews no sooner killed his master than your sister," Holmes replied, confident in his plan.  
"Where's your proof? Where's your explanation for the mongrel's actions?" the lady demanded.  
"Toby tracked Phillip Andrews because his scent was fresher and stronger than the killer's, as he was the one who found the Lord's body. But after Mister Andrews shared with me a detail which led me to realize that Lord Blackwell's killer was a woman, I brought Toby back to try again, once I was sure that the killer had returned to remove the evidence to her identity that she had left behind," Holmes explained.  
"But Toby still did not lead you to me."  
"Oh, but he did, if not all the way to you, he most certainly got me onto your scent," Holmes insisted. "I must say, using your sister's perfume the night of the murder was brilliant, if unsuccessful."  
"Unsuccessful?" the lady echo'd.  
"Doctor Watson recognized the perfume, despite his head cold," Holmes explained. "And then your sister remarked that you were allergic to her perfume."  
"So what if I am allergic to her perfume?" Lady Greybeam demanded. "That doesn't make me a killer."  
"It does place you at the scene of the crime, however," Holmes immediately pointed out.


	27. Whore

**Title: The Doctor and the Prostitute**

**A/N: Warning, alternative universe (unexpected), female!Watson. Continuation from "The Devil's Own Luck". ****Response to Prompt #19 Whore.**

"I don't put my clients in your bed, John, what makes you think that you could put one of yours in my bed?" an angry female voice demanded, the first thing Holmes was aware of when he woke the following morning.  
"I couldn't put him in my bed, it's too small for him," a second woman replied, Holmes figured she was "John".  
"What if I had brought home my client last night instead of going to his place?" the first woman demanded. "It would have given my client the wrong impression, finding another man already in my bed."  
"You always spend the night at his house, this client of yours who has a standing appointment with you for Friday evenings," John pointed out.  
"That doesn't mean he might have wanted to spend the night somewhere else, like here in my rooms," the first woman pointed out.  
Holmes was starting to get a headache, listening to them argue.  
Either that, or he still had a concussion and their heated words were just making his head ache worse.  
Whatever the reason, Holmes figured he probably should be off, before his landlady decided his prolonged absence was an opportunity to throw her most aggravating tenant out onto the streets.  
He sat up in the bed, noting that he was dressed in clean clothes.  
He idly wondered whose they were, as they weren't his.  
He stood up and walked out of the room, towards the voices.  
John and her flatmate were in their sitting room, a few short steps from the bedroom Holmes had woken up in.  
He'd thought he had been silent, but both women looked up as he entered and sat down on one of several armchairs in the room.  
"Good to see you up and about, Mister Holmes," remarked the brunette, John.  
Her black woolen dress was of a conservative cut, but Holmes somehow got the impression that she was better suited to wearing trousers, if the numerous tears in the hem of her dress were anything to go by. Holmes found her hazel gaze a bit unsettling as she studied him, making her own conclusions about his well-being.  
"You have me at a disadvantage, Doctor, as you know my name, but I don't recall you ever properly introducing yourself last night," Holmes declared, ignoring his feelings of unease at the woman's gaze.  
"Watson, John Watson," replied the lady doctor. "And this is my flatmate, Miss Mary Morstan."  
Holmes nodded his head in Mary's direction, his sole acknowledgment of the prostitute's presence. Mary felt slightly miffed by the man's lack of interest in her for a moment before deciding that the man was probably a deviant, and that he had been looking for one of her male colleagues who were willing to cater to clients with illegal tastes when he had encountered John.  
"Well then, Doctor Watson, I do believe that it is time for me to head home, if I might be allowed to have my own clothes back?"  
"You're not getting those filthy rags back, Mister Holmes, I burned them," she replied. "And as for the clothes you're wearing now, you might as well keep them."


	28. Brick

**Title: Sticks and Stones**

**A/N: Warning, alternative universe, minor plot spoilers for the Elizabeth Holmes series. Response to Prompt #91 Brick.**

"You are an idiot, Holmes," Watson declared as he wrapped up the detective's broken arm.  
"No, I'm not," Holmes insisted around his bloody, swollen tongue.  
"Right," Watson drawled. "And the fact that the man insulted _me_?"  
"He should have known better than to call _my_ Boswell a coward," Holmes growled. "Besides, you weren't going to do anything about him."  
"Sticks and stones, Holmes. Sticks and stones."  
"That was no stick, nor was it a stone, Watson. That was a veritable brick."  
"It was a cobblestone," corrected Elizabeth from her corner of the sitting room.  
"How would you know, you weren't even there!" Holmes snapped.  
"I didn't need to be there to know that you were struck on the head by a loose cobblestone, Sherlock," Elizabeth coolly countered. "The nature of your injuries, not to mention the chips of cobblestone I saw Watson remove from your arm and head, told me all I needed to know."  
"How did you know it was cobblestone and not something that looked like it from all the way over there?" Watson asked, clearly impressed by Elizabeth's display of deductive reasoning despite his skeptical question.  
"She guessed," Holmes declared, but Elizabeth shook her head.  
"I did not guess," she admitted. "I was in fact involved with the altercation."  
As she spoke, Elizabeth rolled up her left sleeve, revealing a clean white linen bandage wrapped around her forearm, covering a long gash she had sustained at the hands of a knife-wielding drunk.  
"What were you doing at that pub, Elizabeth?" Watson demanded, shocked at how she had broken her promise and left the safety of Baker Street.  
"I was trying to figure out where I had been taken," the young woman replied.  
"So Angel made his move, then?" Holmes asked.  
Elizabeth nodded.  
"I had hoped it would take him longer to rebuild his father's network," the detective admitted.  
"It was much too easy for me to escape the thugs he'd sent to kidnap me, Sherlock."  
"He's a crafty blackguard, then," Holmes remarked. "He was testing the waters of our defenses."  
"After I got back to Baker Street, I made a through search of the place. Nothing was out of place, except for one thing," Elizabeth said.  
"What was out of place, Elizabeth?" Holmes asked.  
"Watson's black bag."


	29. Adventure

**Title: This is an adventure, Banjo**

**A/N: Previous ficlet was in response to #91. Brick. As for this fic, it's in response to #53. Adventure. Kins Cleavere and Banjo Heyworth are not entirely my own creations.**

"Kins?"  
"What is it, Banjo?"  
"I don't think we're in Malibu anymore."  
"I didn't notice."  
"Did you happen to notice where they've taken us?" Banjo Heyworth, personal assistant, asked.  
"They mentioned something about throwing us into a time machine and sending us to Victorian England to keep us from meddling with their plans for a bit," Kins Cleavere, consulting detective, replied.  
Banjo groaned.  
"What's the matter, my boy?" Kins asked.  
"I hate evil, time machine-wielding geniuses, Kins," Banjo explained. "As you well know."  
"Well, you wanted adventure," Kins observed. "This is an adventure, Banjo."  
Light blinded Banjo and Kins without warning, as a voice called out for them to identify themselves.  
"Cleavere, Kins Cleavere," Kins said. "And this is my manservant, Banjo Heyworth."  
"Manservant!?" hissed Banjo, but Kins ignored him, as he demanded to know the identity of the voice.  
"Sherlock Holmes," the voice replied. "My companion is a doctor, let me get him as your manservant's leg looks broken. WATSON!"  
Both Kins and Banjo winced at the detective's bellow.  
"What is it, Holmes?" a second voice demanded from somewhere behind the crate Banjo and Kins had been dumped into by Moriarty Jones' thugs.  
"This man's leg is broken," Holmes replied as a be-mustached man came into view.  
Kins decided that Banjo would have to grow a mustache as soon as they returned to their own time and place.  
As Kins was beneath Banjo, Watson was able to get to the personal assistant's broken leg without much difficulty.  
"I'll splint it so that we can move you without worsening the break, Mister..." Watson said after a brief examination of Banjo's leg, uncertain of his patient's name.  
"Banjo Heyworth, Doctor Watson," Banjo helpfully supplied.  
"What a...most unusual name, Mister Heyworth," Watson observed, certain that the name was an alias of some kind.  
"My parents couldn't agree on one single name to give me, so they compromised," Banjo explained. "'Ban' for 'Andrew' and 'Jo' for 'Joseph'."  
"Well then, Mister Heyworth, we'll splint your leg so we can move you to a more sanitary place, where I can apply a cast," Watson said, still not quite convinced, though he sensed that Banjo was a kindred spirit, no matter what his name really was.  
He also sensed that Banjo and his companion were not a threat to either Holmes nor to himself. Watson had been in many adventures over the years, and as a result of his experiences, he had learned to trust his instincts--though he would never admit it to Holmes, no matter how many times his instincts as a soldier and a doctor saved their lives.


	30. Complain

**Title: Practically Married**

**A/N: Warning, AU (unexpected), female!Watson. Response to #28 Complain.**

"Watson?"  
"Holmes, no."  
"Why not?"  
"You know why."  
"Lestrade doesn't know why."  
"He isn't the one asking after me."  
"Well then, pretend he is and explain yourself."  
"He wouldn't demand me to explain myself."  
Lestrade fidgeted as the detective and the lady doctor continued to argue, his presence forgotten.  
"Why in blazes do you need me to impersonate your client?"  
"You're the same height, same eye color, similar accent."  
"I wasn't asking for your reasons in wanting me, Holmes."  
"What else am I to think you're asking, Watson?"  
"I expected you to be able to understand what I am saying!"  
"How long have they been at each other's throats, Inspector?" a soft female voice asked.  
"Not long, Miss Morstan," Lestrade replied.  
"Good, then I've not missed out on the most entertaining parts."  
"They argue like this often then?" the inspector asked.  
"Like an old married couple," the prostitute replied.  
"Perhaps they should be one officially," Lestrade remarked as Watson challenged Holmes' logical assumption that his client's life was in danger.  
"They should. They are perfect for each other. Unfortunately, they will likely never figure out that fact on their own," Mary remarked.  
"Well, we'll just have to open their eyes, Miss Morstan."  
"I was not aware that Scotland Yard required its inspectors to be knowledgeable in the art of match-making," Mary remarked.  
"Is match-making a skill vital to your line of work, Miss Morstan?" Lestrade challenged.  
"Actually, it is, in a way," Mary admitted.  
Lestrade winced at the thoughts that came unbidden at what Mary's words implied.


	31. Cough

**Title: Stolen Clothes**

**A/N: Warning, mild spoilers for the 2009 movie. Response to #31 Cough.**

Holmes flinched at the sight of the scarlet droplets of blood that dotted his once pristine shirt sleeve.  
Even though he knew that they really weren't the harbingers of death that they appeared to be, it was difficult to think of them for what they really were.  
"Sorry 'bout that, Holmes," a tired, hoarse voice broke into the detective's thoughts.  
"Save your breath for breathing, Watson," Holmes gently rebuked his sick friend as he placed the thermometer back in the doctor's mouth.  
Five minutes later, Holmes removed the thermometer from his friend's mouth and read it. He waited for Watson to finish coughing before he spoke.  
"100.3," he announced.  
Watson groaned.  
"What's wrong?" Holmes asked. "Your fever's finally going down."  
"It's not going down fast enough," rasped Watson.  
"Well, if you hadn't insisted on coming with me to investigate Father McKay's claim that he did not kill Bill Hadwell, then your cough wouldn't have worsened," Holmes observed.  
"Yeah, and you would have been dead," Watson was quick to point out.  
Holmes had to agree with Watson on that point, since Watson was correct. He didn't let that stop him from making his point that Watson was solely to blame for his present lack of health, however.  
"Be it as it may, Watson, I did not order you to follow me into the crypts after Bill Hadwell's murderer. You went down there of your own accord," he reminded his biographer and friend.  
"I wasn't going to let you face an armed killer knowing that you were unarmed, Holmes," Watson retorted. "You know me well enough to know that I wouldn't allow such a thing to happen."  
Holmes didn't have a reply to that one.  
Technically, he did, he just couldn't say it without riling up the doctor--which would in turn aggravate the man's cough.  
And he didn't want any more bloodstains on this shirt, since he had borrowed--though Watson would call it 'pilfer'--it from his flatmate's wardrobe.


	32. Engage

**Title: The Unexpected Ring**

**A/N: Warning, au (unexpected), female!Watson, married!Holmes. 1 of 2 in this story arc. Response to #10 Engage.**

"What's wrong, John?" Mary asked her morose flatmate.  
"I don't think Sherlock is ever going to ask me to marry him," Watson replied.  
"But you two get along so wonderfully," Mary observed.  
"He's not the marrying type, Mary."  
"What do you mean?"  
"He doesn't like 'flagrant' displays of emotions like marriage."  
"Well, then, what does he think of the idea of you marrying another man? You did ask him about it like I suggested?"  
Watson sighed.  
"Yes, I asked him about that."  
"And?"  
"He said that no other man would be willing to marry the flatmate of a prostitute, lady doctor or not."  
"No _other_ man? He really said that?"  
"He did."  
"Maybe he is the marrying type, John."  
Watson shook her head.  
"No, he just wasn't including himself in that statement," she explained.  
"You asked him about that?"  
"Yeah, Mary, I did."  
"Do you think he would marry you if he could do it without the so-called flagrant displays of emotion?" Mary asked, her mind buzzing with possibilities.  
This wasn't the first time she'd meddled in a relationship, least of all this particular relationship.  
Watson thought for a moment before replying.  
"I think so, but I'm not entirely certain of it," she finally declared. "Besides, the wedding itself would have to have such displays, there's no way around that."  
Watson was right, Mary knew, but she was sure that Sherlock Holmes would willingly suffer through a wedding ceremony to marry the lady doctor.  
It simply was a matter of who would ask whom.


	33. Answer

**Title: The Unexpected Request**

**A/N: Warning, au (unexpected), female!Watson, married!Holmes. 2 of 2 in this story arc. Response to #18 Answer.**

The following morning, Mary took Watson out shopping for a ring, while Lestrade kept Holmes distracted and out of the way with a simple little case of suicide made to look like murder disguised as a suicide (it had been all too easy for Lestrade to convince a couple of his fellow inspectors to help him with the dirty work of creating evidence of a crime that didn't really happen).  
Mary insisted on paying for the ring, which she did as soon as she had overruled Watson's objections.  
"Consider it an early bridal gift," the prostitute declared.  
That evening, Watson nervously waited in her sitting room for Holmes to arrive to take her out to dinner.  
"Don't be so nervous, John, everything will be fine," Mary chided.  
"But he's late, Mary," Watson observed. "He's never been late before."  
"What about that time he got thrown into a crate of rotting fish guts?" Mary asked.  
"He sent me a wire before he idiotically confronted those counterfeiters on his own to warn me that he might be running late and to not worry about him."  
"Really? Why then were you so concerned when he was late?"  
"Because I'd contacted Inspector Gregson and he told me what Holmes' current case was."  
There was a loud rapping on the door. Watson answered it, since it was probably for her.  
A bedraggled Inspector Lestrade stood on her stoop. Beside him stood Sherlock Holmes, spotlessly dressed his best.  
"Come on in, Inspector Lestrade, Holmes," she said, standing aside to allow them passage.  
As Holmes stepped over the threshold, he handed Watson a bouquet of flowers.  
"Holmes, you remembered!" Watson exclaimed after she'd realized that the bouquet consisted solely of her favorite bloom, forget-me-nots.  
"Of course I remembered, Watson," Holmes replied, quite pleased by Watson's reaction. By this point, they were in the sitting room.  
Mary and Lestrade shared a knowing look.  
Lestrade cleared his throat.  
"My apologies, Doctor Watson, I am wholly to blame for making you miss your reservations at Simpson's this evening," he said.  
"That's alright, Inspector," Watson replied, "as we are eating in tonight. A client of Miss Morstan's has offered to cook a magnificent feast for us this evening. You're welcome to join us, if you'd like, Inspector."  
"Your offer is too good to refuse, Doctor," Lestrade replied.  
Once everyone had eaten their fill, they regrouped back in the sitting room for coffee.  
"Inspector, isn't there something you want to ask one of our lovely hostesses?" Holmes suddenly inquired during a lull in the conversation.  
Lestrade blushed.  
"I don't know how you figured that out, Mister Holmes, but you are right," he admitted.  
"It's quite obvious," Holmes remarked.  
"I don't see how, unless someone at the Yard told you."  
"Let me enlighten you then," Holmes declared. "You've been patting your right coat pocket all day today, where I've noticed the presence of a lump suggestive of a small box, such as the ones used by jewelers to package engagement rings."  
_I've been doing that too_, Watson realized. _Does he know that I'm about to ask him to marry me?_  
As Watson realized this, Lestrade pulled a small box out of his right coat pocket.  
Lestrade got up from his seat and knelt on one knee before Mary.  
"Miss Mary Morstan, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?" he asked.  
Mary beamed at Lestrade as she gave her answer.  
"Oh, Giles, yes!" she exclaimed, tears in her eyes.  
Watson was hard pressed to stifle her snickers at Holmes' unhappy expression at the former prostitute's bliss.  
Taking pity on the detective, Watson removed a small box from her own pocket.  
"Holmes, may I ask you something?" Watson asked, hiding the box in her lap under her hands.  
"Sure," Holmes replied.  
"Holmes, would you marry me?"  
The detective's silence caused the lady doctor's heart to break, for Watson began to worry that she had been mistaken in Holmes' feelings towards her.  
And then he answered Watson's question, and everything changed.


	34. Funeral

**Title: Mourning, Love**

**A/N: Warning, au (unexpected), female!Watson, married!Holmes, character death, references to suicide. Response to #3 Funeral.**

How much death and loss could any one person bear in a single year, let alone one lifetime?  
That was the question Joanne Hannah Watson seemed destined to discover the answer to when she returned to England in May of 1890 with the news of her husband's death, not even 12 months after the loss of her unborn daughter.  
Then in July of that same year, her former flatmate and close friend, Mary Lestrade, was kidnapped and subsequentantly murdered by a crazed serial killer who'd turned out to be one of Mary's former clients.  
Watson couldn't stop herself from thinking that if Holmes had still been alive, then perhaps she wouldn't have had another grave to visit.  
And then the news came, a shepherd had found a body downstream from the falls.  
Watson had had to return to Switzerland to identify the body.  
Mycroft Holmes had accompanied her, wanting to make sure she didn't kill herself after seeing her husband lying on a cold, dead examination table.  
Watson broke down into tears when it turned out that they'd found Professor Moriarty's body, not her husband's.  
Once she had calmed down, Mycroft asked her why she'd become so hysterical.  
"Look at his hand, Mycroft," Watson murmured. Mycroft did as he was bidden to do, and that's when he saw the gold chain, exactly identical to the one his brother wore around his neck with his wedding band safely out of the way of chemicals, grime, and ink.  
Watson sobbed when the professor's hand was wrenched open to reveal Holmes' wedding band, with the inscription 'Forever Yours -JHW' on the inside.  
Watson cried herself sick on the day that Holmes was declared dead. She didn't leave her bed--the bed she'd shared with Sherlock Holmes for the past seven years--for the following fortnight.  
She'd probably have remained in bed for longer if her partner, Arthur C. Doyle, hadn't insisted that she get some fresh air.  
Doyle was the one who kept Watson from killing herself in the years that followed those two weeks.  
She was still wearing full mourning that fateful day in 1894, when an old, sickly bookseller came to Baker Street seeking her medical advice concerning his wife...


	35. Slave

**Title: Just Another Body**

**A/N: Warning, au (unexpected), female!Watson, references to violence and rape. Response to #20 Slave.**

Six months was a long time when you were a sex slave, Watson mused as she removed stitches from one of her fellow slaves, an Irish woman barely out of her girlhood. New to the cruel life of a sex slave, she had tried to rebel against her master and had been brutally raped and beaten for her troubles.  
Watson had treated many of her fellow slaves for this reason in the six months since she had been taken from her flat while Mary was out with a client.  
The lady doctor counted her blessings that she had been bought by a man more interested in her medical training than in her abilities in the bedroom.  
"Doctor?" a voice called.  
"What is it, Magnolia?" Watson replied, turning to face her patient's twin sister.  
"Will Maple live?" Magnolia asked.  
"For the time being, yes," Watson replied.  
Magnolia beamed, a sight Watson had never before seen--at least not the genuine article, anyways.  
"Thank yew, Doctor," the girl said as she embraced Watson.  
She quickly stepped away from the lady doctor at the sound of approaching footsteps.  
Their lord and master had returned from the slave auction, and it sounded like he'd brought home at least one, possibly more.  
The door to the rundown slave quarters opened and the master's latest purchase was roughly thrown inside.  
Then the master was gone again.  
Maple, the other two female slaves (Rose and Loblolly), and the two male slaves (John and Mark) cautiously approached the new arrival, who had freed himself from the ropes that had left him defenseless against the master's rough treatment.  
"Are yew alright?" Maple asked him.  
He answered the question with a distracted affirmation of his good health, more interested in plumbing the depths of the poorly lit rooms.


	36. Lick

**Title: To Jump off a Cliff**

**A/N: Warning, au (childhood). Response to #21 Lick.**

"Mycroft! Mycroft!" cried John, breathless from running all the way from the farmyard in the snow.  
Mycroft looked up from the book on American politics he was reading and frowned at his stepbrother's interruption.  
"What is it, John?" he grumbled.  
"It's Ho-Sherlock," John gasped.  
"What has he done now?" Mycroft demanded, even more displeased at being interrupted.  
"He tried to see if it was really true that licking a cold piece of metal was a bad idea," John explained. "I told him it was a bad idea, but he wouldn't listen."  
If Matthew Holmes and Rebekkah Watson-Holmes came home from their day-long trip into town to find their young son stuck to a water pump (Mycroft hoped that Sherlock had at least been smart enough to lick the water pump and not some other, less savory, metallic object in the farmyard) by his tongue, Mycroft knew he would be in trouble too, since he was _supposed_ to be keeping an eye on his siblings.  
Unfortunately, he didn't have any inkling of how to free his idiotic younger brother.  
"He's going to have to stay put until Mom and Dad return, John," he said, "unless he's willing to rip off his tongue."  
"No need for that, Mycroft," John replied. "My dad told me 'bout an old trick to free a stuck tongue."  
"Why did you come bother me then, John?"  
"Well, because I'll need help getting the warm water over to where Sherlock is at," John stated, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.  
Which it was.


	37. Lament

**Title: One Man's Trash**

**A/N: Warning, au (unexpected), female!Watson, married!Holmes. For poeticmaiden, who asked for this scene. 1 of 2 in this story arc. Response to #5 Lament.**

Arthur Doyle was quite annoyed with the fact that his quite attractive partner continued to wear full mourning three years after the death of her husband.  
However, he was not annoyed with the fact that Joanne Watson-Holmes had agreed to to go out to dinner with him tonight to discuss the possibilities of marriage.  
As he readied himself for his next patient, the maid, Peony McAdams, knocked on the exam room door.  
"Doctor Doyle, it's me, Peony," she called. "May I come in?"  
"You may come in, Peony, of course," Doyle replied.  
Today was Peony's first day on the job, as her predecessor, Kristen Downey, had gotten married to the son of a respectable banker, thanks in large part to Doctor Watson-Holmes.  
Peony opened the door and entered the exam room with the wariness of one expecting to be ambushed.  
"Well, Peony, what is it?" Doyle asked.  
"There's a man demanding to see Doctor Holmes," the maid explained.  
"Did you explain to him that she is out making house calls in Whitechapel?" Doyle asked.  
"Yes, I did, but he refused to be seen by you instead."  
Doyle sighed.  
"He's probably the husband of one of her female patients, Peony," he remarked. Standing up from his chair, he added, "I'll speak with him."


	38. Pass

**Title: Is Another's Treasure**

**A/N: Warning, au (unexpected), female!Watson, married!Holmes. For poeticmaiden, who asked for this scene. 2 of 2 in this story arc. Response to #40 Pass.**

Doyle didn't even need Peony to point out the man asking after his partner, the man's fine clothes stood out in the waiting room full of day laborers, seamstresses, beggars, and the poorest of poorly paid government employees.  
"Doctor Doyle, this maid insists that I can not see Doctor Holmes," were the first words out of the man's mouth.  
"As Miss McAdams told you, Doctor Holmes is out making house calls in Whitechapel today. However, if it isn't urgent, you can come back tomorrow," Doyle replied.  
"Oh, but it's absolutely important that I speak with her today," the man replied. "Before she makes a terrible mistake."  
Not liking the sound of that, Doyle ushered the man into his office, where they could continue the conversation in private.  
Meanwhile, all the way in Whitechapel, Doctor Joanne Watson-Holmes was being followed by a _very_ persistent "old" man.  
Finally getting fed up with being followed, Watson confronted her tail.  
"Why are you following me around, sir?" she demanded, barely managing any semblance of politeness.  
"Can't tell yew 'til we are at Baker Street, ma'am," the man replied. "Which is yer next stop, right?"  
"It is, but I don't know how you knew that," Watson replied, clearly distrustful of the old man now.  
"Don't worry, ma'am, yew will understand everything once we get ta Baker Street."  
"You seem to be under the impression that once we get to Baker Street, I'm going to let you into my house."  
"Yew wouldn't let an old man like meself go wif out food an' shelter, ma'am. Besides, wot better way ta keep an eye on a potential threat ta yer well-being than ta have tha' threat under yer roof where yew can see it?"  
Watson sighed.  
"Do I need to call us a cab, or do you think you can walk all the way to Baker Street from here?"  


* * *

The sun was nearly about to start setting by the time they reached Baker Street, and Watson was regretting allowing the old man to decide that they didn't need a cab.  
"Good evening, Joanne," the landlady greeted Watson before realizing that her tenant was not alone.  
"Who's this?" she asked, as Watson's uninvited guest started walking up the seventeen stairs to the sitting room.  
"Some old man who decided to follow me home before introducing himself," Watson replied. "Could you send a wire to Doctor Doyle to let him know that I'll be running late?"  
"Certainly, Joanne, but do you think it wise to confront this strange man alone? Heaven only knows what he's up to," replied Mrs. Hudson.  
"I know how to defend myself, Martha," Watson reminded her.  
"I have a feeling that that man means trouble," Mrs. Hudson remarked.  
"Me too," Watson admitted as she went up to the sitting room after the old man.  
When she first entered the sitting room, she thought it was empty, that the old man had entered her bedroom, since the door to her room now stood open.  
Then she saw him, a single blue flower in his hand.  
"Forget-me-nots, you remembered, Holmes," Watson said before everything went black.


	39. Extreme

**Title: The Envelope, Push It**

**A/N: Guest appearances by Abby and Tony Stark from my upcoming Iron Man fanfic series, 'Iron Girl'. Response to #61 Extreme.**

When Abigail Stark opened her eyes, the last she expected to see was what she saw.  
Jude Law with facial hair, checking her pulse.  
"Good to see you awake, Miss," Jude Law informed her--except he didn't sound at all like Jude Law. And now that she thought about it, he didn't quite look like Jude Law.  
"Who are you?" Abby demanded. "And what happened?"  
"He is Doctor John Watson and I am Sherlock Holmes," said someone from the doorway. "And we were hoping you could tell us."  
"Well, the last thing I remember, Mister Holmes, was working in To--my father's workshop on a project."  
"Abigail! Abby, are you in here?" boomed a voice from below.  
"What in blazes?" growled Watson, as Abby cried out in answer to her birth father's inquiry.  
"Tony! I'm over here!"  
Footsteps raced up the stairs then Tony Stark burst into the sitting room of 221B Baker Street.  
"Abby! When I saw you disappear, I thought--" he began, but Abby interrupted him.  
"Nevermind what you thought happened, Tony," she said. "I want to know what did happen and whether or not we can reverse it."  
"Excuse me, but your chest is glowing, sir," Holmes observed.  
Abby snickered as Tony groaned.  
"Yes, my chest is indeed glowing," Tony said. "Now, Abby, let's go before the timeline gets messed up."  
"She has an irregular heartbeat, sir," Watson remarked. "I've never seen it in one as old as her before."  
Tony swore under his breath.  
"We come from the future, Doctor Watson," Abby explained.  
"And I suppose that in your time, an irregular heartbeat isn't a death sentence for an infant?" Watson asked.  
Abby nodded.  
"The future sounds like a wonderful place, Miss," Watson said.  
"It has its good days," Tony remarked.  
"Crime still exists in your time?" Holmes asked.  
"Unfortunately, yes," Abby replied.  
"And if we don't go now, the portal I opened to find you, Abby, will close and leave us trapped here forever," Tony declared.  
Abby paled at his words.  
"And if we're trapped here, I'll die," she breathed as she tried to stand up. But she lacked the strength to stay on her feet for more than a few seconds.  
Watson, who was the closest to her, caught her before she could fall backwards and hit her head on anything.  
"Looks like you'll have to carry me, Tony," Abby breathlessly observed.  
"What else is new?" Tony joked as he lifted his only daughter up from the sofa and carried her down the stairs, through the time portal, and back home.  
"Do you think we'll ever meet them again, Holmes?" Watson asked as the portal closed behind the Starks.  
"Logically, I'd say no," Holmes replied. "However, it would be lovely to see them again, I must admit."  
"Lovely?"  
"Shut up, Watson."  
"Seriously, Holmes, 'it would be lovely to see them again'? That sounds more like a line from one of--"  
"Finish that sentence, Watson, and you will regret it."  
"--my 'overly romantic' stories," Watson finished. "And, really, Holmes, I could never write up this particular adventure anyways."


	40. Stoned

**Title: To Paint a Wall**

**A/N: Warning, drug (ab)use. Response to #49 Stoned.**

"Watson, why did you paint the walls purple and yellow?" Holmes asked. "For that matter, _when_ did you paint the walls?"  
Watson rolled his eyes and sighed.  
"Holmes, I didn't paint the walls," he said.  
"Oh," Holmes exclaimed. "Watson?"  
"Yes, Holmes?"  
"Did _I_ paint the walls?"  
"No."  
"Did Mrs. Hudson?"  
Watson shook his head.  
"Lestrade?"  
"No."  
"Did anyone paint the wall purple and yellow, Watson?"  
"No, Holmes."  
"Then how are they now purple and yellow?"  
"They aren't, Holmes."  
"But--"  
"You're high on some kind of hallucinogen, Holmes."  
"Oh, okay."  
They sat in silence for about five minutes before Holmes opened his mouth again.  
"When did you grow a tail, Watson?" he asked.  
Watson was so startled by the question that he actually turned to see whether he had really grown a tail since he last had cause to check for one.  
"I don't have a tail, Holmes," he remarked, his cheeks flushing slightly in mild embarrassment.  
"Are you sure?" Holmes asked, "because I'm sure that you have one now. It's a beautiful tail, it looks quite fluffy and soft."  
"Does it now?" Watson asked, curiosity getting the better of him.  
"Yes," Holmes affirmed. "It's just the right sort of tail for my Watson, beautiful and elegant, yet practical and economical."  
"I wish I could see it, Holmes, but I can't," Watson declared. "Do you have a tail?"  
Holmes turned to check.  
"No, I do not. I suppose your tail is a figment of my imagination, Watson."  
"I'm not surprised to hear that," Watson admitted.  
"Why do you say that, Watson?"  
"Because you dosed yourself with a hallucinogen without at least leaving me with a note to tell me what you've taken this time."  
"My bad," Holmes said, clearly not in his right (or at least what served as such) mind.


	41. Rape

**Title: Objections**

**A/N: Warning, au (unexpected), female!Watson, married!Holmes, muse raping by author. Response to #68 Rape.**

Watson had had to tell Holmes about Mary, since Mycroft had deemed that the violent murder of his sister-in-law's former flatmate and close friend was not something his brother needed to hear about.  
Especially, as Mycroft had rightly pointed out in his defense, since Holmes would have booked passage on the next boat to England, Moran and his air gun be damned.  
On the way back to Baker Street from Mycroft's rooms in Pall Mall, Watson observed that trusting Mycroft to keep him informed had to be one of the better mistakes Holmes had made.  
"Who would you suggest that I have trusted instead of my brother, Watson?" Holmes asked.  
"Well, since you needed me to stay in the dark about your continued survival, not me."  
"Not to mention you lack the connections needed to keep me informed of certain goings on," Holmes pointed out.  
"Mrs. Hudson, Holmes. You should have told her."  
"And risk her telling you about me?" Holmes asked.  
"She knows how to keep secrets, Holmes."  
"But she's a woman, she gossips," objected Holmes as their cab came to a stop at 221b Baker Street.  
Holmes paid the cab driver as Watson got her key out and opened the door.  
Once they were both settled in their armchairs before the empty fireplace in their sitting room, Watson resumed the discussion.  
"I am a woman, too, Holmes, or have you forgotten that in the three years have been pretending to be dead?"  
"I haven't forgotten your womanhood, Watson, never fear," Holmes replied.  
"Well, why then do you object to the idea of Mrs. Hudson being your confidant so?" Watson demanded.  
"It's a frightening idea, Watson," Holmes began, clearly flustered.  
The timely ringing of the doorbell saved him from further linguistic difficulties--for the time being, of course.


	42. Amnesia

**Title: Forgive and Forget**

**A/N: Warning, None. The Second Afghan War was a result of the Afghani people's grudge over losing the first Afghan War. Response to #2 Amnesia.**

"Watson?" Holmes hesitantly called, poking his head around the doctor's door.  
"Go away, Holmes," growled the Afghan vet, clearly not in the mood to deal with Holmes at present.  
Not that Holmes ever let something so simple as his Watson's mood dictate his behavior, and he wasn't about to start now.  
"Not until you tell me why you are in such a foul mood today, Watson, as it is most unlike you," the detective declared.  
"It's none of your concern, Holmes."  
"How uncivilized of you, Watson, to refuse to tell me what has happened," Holmes boldly declared.  
"Fine, if you must know, Holmes, I was called a coward, and simply because I happened to have been one of the few to survive Maiwand," Watson snapped.  
"He must not be able to read," Holmes snarled, a plan to teach the man who'd called his Watson a coward a lesson the man would never forget already beginning to form in his mind.  
"Oh, this man could read just fine, Holmes."  
"What literate man would be able to think of you as a coward, Watson?" demanded Holmes.  
"Holmes, I don't want you to go and punish the man."  
"I wasn't going to punish this man, just...teach him a lesson," insisted Holmes.  
"Holmes, the old can not help but be set in their ways, and if they learned to be as flexible as stone, well, then that's how they'll be."  
"So what then shall I do?" Holmes demanded. "I can not stand by and allow a wrong to go unpunished."  
"Forgive and forget, Holmes," Watson advised. "Many a war was started by people holding grudges."


	43. Lake

**Title: Riddles in the Dark**

**A/N: Warning, Slash, AU (modern), Crossover with 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang', Spoilers (for my Holmes Big Bang fic). Written for practice for my HBB fic. Original version can be found on my livejournal (note, original version is rated R for language). Response to #52 Lake.**

_Hello again. Remember me? Harry Lockhart? Well if you don't, I'd recommend watching that movie I made a few years back about how I came to be Perry's assistant.  
Who's Perry, you ask?  
Where have you been for the past five years, New Jersey? How can you not know who 'Gay Perry' is?!_  
Harry looked around him, trying to figure out where he was. Moonlight glinting off the surface of a nearby body of water told him that he was near a lake, but which lake?  
_Now, you're probably wondering how it is that I don't know where I am. The answer is quite simple. I'd just escaped from those weirdos who'd kidnapped me._  
Gunfire shattered the night, sending Harry scrambling for cover behind nearby bushes.  
"If we leave now, they'll kill him!" bellowed a voice.  
Harry felt a thrill of hope. That was Perry speaking.  
"They are not so foolish as to do that, Mr. Van Shrike," a new voice observed. Harry wondered why Perry was working with someone with such a strong British accent.  
"How can you be so sure, Mr. Holmes?" Perry demanded.  
Further conversation was prevented by even more gunfire, which to Harry's dismay, was getting closer to where he was.  
"Do you even care about whether or not we find my assistant now that we've found your boyfriend?" snarled Perry, also much closer than before.  
_Turns out, the bad guys were forcing Perry, Mr. Holmes, and Doctor Watson towards the lake--where I was--on purpose. At least nobody knew that I was there too._


	44. Ocean

**Title: Row, Row your boat**

**A/N: Warning, AU (feline). A new (and completely random) 'verse I've just created. Response to #24 Ocean.**

"They aren't following us, Holmes," Watson observed, unsure of whether that was a good or a bad thing.  
"Of course they aren't, Watson, they can catch us at their leisure, since there is only one way off this island, and that is at the pier," Holmes pointed out.  
"But they said it was dangerous to wander off into the jungle like this," Watson observed, recalling something he'd heard whilst he'd been feigning unconsciousness.  
"So you heard that too?" Holmes asked, not even attempting to hide his pride for his best pupil.  
Watson went on, certain that Holmes was being foolish, risking their lives on the slim chance that they would be able to survive in the jungle long enough for someone to come and rescue them unarmed.  
"Holmes, jungles are home to animals...animals able _and_ willing to eat a man," he declared.  
"This island is small, Watson, as are its inhabitants," Holmes replied. "Any native predator would nessecarily be too small to be any real threat to us."  
_Curse the man and his damned logical mind_, Watson thought.  
Any further thoughts he had were driven clean out of his mind by the soft sound of a wet twig snapping under the weight of a tiger's paw somewhere close behind him.  
Senses on full alert, Watson whirled around.  
To his horror, his gaze found a smallish tiger--a Sumatran tiger, some small part of his mind supplied--crouched, caught in the act of stalking him.  
Holmes had turned around at the sound too.  
"Between the devil and the deep blue sea," he observed beneath his breath, so low that Watson wasn't entirely sure that his friend had actually spoken.  
"Well, Watson, I suppose we will have to storm the pier," Holmes remarked, a bit louder this time. "Maybe Kitty here can help us."  
"Kitty?"  
"Your feline friend, Watson."  
"'Kitty' is a tiger," Watson objected. "And a _wild_ animal, as well."  
"Kitty isn't wild, she escaped from her 'owners'."  
"Her owners were idiots, Holmes."  
"Clearly, considering they named a _tiger_ 'Kitty'."  
"Reow?" questioned Kitty, cautiously approaching the two bickering men.  
Watson frowned as he got a better look at her stripes.  
"Impossible," he breathed, but even as the word left his lips he knew it wasn't.  
'Kitty' wasn't a Sumatran tiger, she was an Indian tiger, the runt of her litter.  
"What is?" Holmes asked, as Watson held out a hand for the tiger to sniff.  
"Nevermind, Holmes," Watson said as the tiger licked his hand._  
_


	45. Needle

**Title: Sewing Lessons**

**A/N: Warning, AU (unexpected), female!Watson, married!Holmes. Response to #71 Needle.**

Holmes entered the sitting room to find Watson on the couch, an awfully large pile of clothes at her feet.  
He didn't need to ask her what she was doing, even Lestrade could see that she was mending their clothes. What wasn't so obvious was why she was mending their clothes, since she was clearly a terrible seamstress, since she was adding to the blood stains on their clothes.  
"Why are you sewing, Watson?"  
Watson jumped, for she hadn't realized that Holmes was there until he'd spoken.  
Unfortunately, she had also stabbed herself with the needle, adding more of her blood to the stains on the shirt she'd been trying to mend.  
"Why shouldn't I?" Watson bitterly demanded. "I am your wife after all, it is my job to do your mending."  
"What's wrong with having Mrs. Hudson doing the mending for us?" Holmes asked, beginning to suspect that Watson's snobby twin sister Jemina had had a hand in Watson's current predicament.  
"Jemina came over today for tea without telling me she was," Watson sighed. "When I finally arrived here from my practice, she lectured me on my responsibilities as your wife."  
"That can't possibly be all that happened, Watson," Holmes objected. "This isn't the first time she's done this to you, after all."  
"Mother was with her this time."  
Watson's mother was formidable, if short, woman. Holmes couldn't blame Watson for feeling ashamed of herself.  
"Stop sewing, Watson, you're just making more work for Mrs. Hudson. She'll probably raise the rent over those blood stains," Holmes remarked as Mrs. Hudson herself entered the sitting room with dinner.  
"Who have you killed this time, Mr. Holmes?" the landlady blithely asked.  
Watson smirked at Holmes' disgruntled expression.  
"No one, Mrs. Hudson, but Watson here has bloodied my clothes with her sewing skills," Holmes eventually managed.  
Watson glared at her husband.  
After all, what woman would want her poor sewing skills openly broadcast, least of all a lady doctor?  
"Well, it's your own fault for needing them," Mrs. Hudson retorted.  
And that's when she got her first real good look at what Watson had been working on since teatime._  
_


	46. Adore

**Title: Graduation Day**

**A/N: Warning, AU (ehc, mhs), Discussion of Adult Concepts. Response to #15 Adore.**

Watson sighed.  
"Holmes, if you don't come out of there right now, we'll miss the train," he called.  
"That's what I'm hoping to have happen," the detective admitted, sticking his head out of his room as he spoke.  
"Holmes, you promised Elizabeth that you'd come to this play as a surprise for Mylock," Watson reminded him.  
Holmes sighed.  
He knew that his friend was right, he had promised Elizabeth that he would come to this play that her son, Mylock, was acting in, his first role in what promised to be an illustrious career as an actor.  
A couple hours later, their train pulled into London.  
As they stepped out of the train and onto the platform, a familiar voice bellowed, "Mister 'Olmes! Doctor Watson!"  
"Ah, Campbell, how wonderful it is to see to see you alive and well," Watson said, embracing the former Irregular in a brief hug.  
"Same ta yew, Doctor," Campbell replied. "Let me take those, Mister 'Olmes."  
Holmes reluctantly allowed Campbell to take the bags.  
"It's not 'cause yer older than yew used ta be, Mister 'Olmes," Campbell quickly explained.  
"If it is not that, Campbell, what is it then?" Holmes asked.  
"Elizabeth, Mister 'Olmes," Campbell admitted, as he led the way to the cab he'd had waiting for them. "She's fiercely protective o' yew, an' o' th' doctor as well."  
"Still at Baker Street, I see," Holmes remarked after Campbell had given the cabbie the address of their destination.  
"'Earing is as sharp as ever, I see," Campbell retorted.  
Watson smirked.  
"Are you really Campbell, or are you his wife?" he asked.  
"Cor, Doctor," exclaimed Elizabeth, no longer mimicking her husband. "How'd you figure me out?"  
"The comment on my hearing, I suppose," Holmes supplied.  
Watson nodded.  
"So, how long did it take you to figure me out, Sherlock?" Elizabeth asked. "Be honest now."  
"When you slipped up and commented on my hearing," Holmes morosely admitted.  
"Barring a loss of eyesight in the time since we last spoke, Sherlock, I guess I've finally graduated from your twisted school o' disguises an' crime fighting."  
"His eyesight is as sharp as ever, Elizabeth," Watson supplied.  
"Glad to hear it, Doctor," Elizabeth idly remarked.  
"Elizabeth, you took that prostitution case," Holmes asked, though it was far from being an actual question.  
"Prostitution case?" Watson asked, bewildered both by the sudden change in subject and by the new subject of conversation.  
"I've been hired by a woman who believes her brother has been forced into prostitution," Elizabeth explained.  
"Sounds straight forward enough to me," Watson remarked.  
"Her client's brother was nearly sent to the gaols for deviancy, Watson," Holmes added.  
"And apparently he was quite talented in such acts, at least that's what several of my informants have claimed," Elizabeth blithely observed.  
Watson had long since adjusted to the carefree way both Elizabeth and Holmes tended to treat such sensitive subjects as sexual intercourse, so he did not even flinch at his friend's daughter's display of such knowledge.  
"Well, I've got several promising leads on her brother's whereabouts already, Sherlock, so never you mind about me," Elizabeth remarked as the cab came to a stop in front of the flat Watson and Holmes had shared for many years. "Now, as we have arrived, can we not speak of the matter anymore?"  
"For now, Elizabeth, but I have more to say to you about this case," Holmes replied._  
_


	47. Reminisce

**Title: Remembering Gwyn**

**A/N: Warning, AU (unexpected), female!Watson, married!Holmes. I've got quite the backlog of these at the moment, I'm going to try and update at least once a day until I catch up or finish the table, which ever happens first. Response to #41 Reminisce.**

Holmes looked up from the beehive he'd been examining--there'd been a bad windstorm the previous evening--as Watson slowly made her way over to him from the Sussex cottage they were renting for their holiday.  
"You really shouldn't be up and about so soon after what happened last month, Watson," Holmes rebuked his wife.  
Watson made a most un-ladylike face at his words.  
"Holmes, I've been bed-ridden for nearly four weeks, I need to move around before my joints lock up," Watson grumbled.  
"You're not as young as you used to be, Watson," Holmes objected, coming over to Watson as he spoke.  
"Neither are you, Holmes," Watson quickly pointed out. "And that didn't stop us from catching those jewel thieves, now did it?"  
Holmes had to admit that she was right.  
"But what about next time, Watson? Ringsley nearly killed you," Holmes objected. "What if the next time we're on a case and the police don't make it on time?"  
"Holmes, what is really bothering you?" Watson demanded, hands on hips as she tried her best to look formidable.  
"You can't see it?" Holmes asked.  
"See what, Holmes?"  
"When I saw Ringsley standing over your still form, Watson, I was reminded of how I found you."  
"Found me?" Watson asked, but she had a feeling that she knew what Holmes was talking about.  
"When Moriarty's thugs attacked you to keep me from going after their boss," Holmes replied.  
"Oh, Holmes, are you still blaming yourself for that? After all these years?"  
"Of course I am, Watson, if I hadn't been so foolish as to suppose that Moriarty would leave you alone as you didn't know anything about him," Holmes snapped.  
"That wasn't the only reason, was it, Holmes?" Watson asked softly. "Because if it were, you wouldn't still be feeling guilty over what happened now, years later."  
Holmes sighed. He knew Watson was right, even if he didn't want her to be.  
He'd allowed himself to accept the most ridiculous (and most romantic, as well) notion that because Watson was a woman--a pregnant woman, at that--, Moriarty would leave his wife alone.  
"Holmes, it's not your fault that I miscarried," Watson remarked.  
"It is my fault, Watson," Holmes insisted. "I should have known that Moriarty would go after you. I failed to protect you, and as a result, our little baby girl never had a chance to live."  
"Holmes, remind me what it was you said after I told you about Gwyn?" Watson asked.  
"When I vowed to bring down Moriarty's entire crime network or die trying?" Holmes asked, not sure what his wife was getting at with her question.  
"Before that."  
"That I'd been about to turn the case over to Mycroft?"  
Watson nodded.  
"Holmes, do you really think your brother would have been able to catch Moriarty?"  
Holmes was silent for a moment before replying.  
"I did, Watson, though I had a feeling that he'd take too long to catch the Professor."_  
_


	48. Quake

**Title: Shake, Rattle, and Roll**

**A/N: Warning, AU. This one is dedicated to the victims of the earthquake in Chile, which happened just hours before I made the discovery that would result in this ficlet. Response to #81 Quake.**

Holmes opened his eyes in the pitch blackness of his hotel room.  
Something was wrong. But what?  
"Holmes, get in the doorway!" shouted the doctor.  
The detective wanted to ask why, but he figured that could wait until after he had done as he had been told.  
As he rolled out of his bed, that was when he realized that the building was shaking violently on its foundations.  
Most unusual.  
Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity later (but really wasn't even a minute), the shaking stopped.  
But the horror had only just begun.  
"Holmes, are you alright?" Watson asked from where he stood in the doorway of his room.  
"I'm fine, Watson," Holmes replied. "What about you?"  
"I'm fine," the doctor replied, just as the first of many aftershocks struck.  
It did not feel all that different from the initial tremblor to Holmes, though it did seem to be a few minutes shorter in length than the first.  
As the first aftershock ended, an explosion rattle the windows.  
Under the combined pressures of an aftershock and an explosion, the windows shattered, pelting their backs with shards of glass.  
Holmes, who had gone to bed fully clothed, could feel the shards slice through his jacket, but they lacked the force to reach his skin by the time they had flown across the room.  
Watson wasn't as lucky, his back stained red from the numerous cuts the shards of his window made there.  
"Watson, what happened?" Holmes demanded, concern for his friend driving him from his doorway.  
"The window shattered behind me," Watson gasped beneath shocks of agony as Holmes reached his side. "Maybe she was right, Holmes."  
"That gypsy woman who read your fortune last week?"  
Watson nodded.  
"I highly doubt it, Watson. She got the location wrong."  
"So it's the capitol of North Dakota and not San Fransisco, she was still spot on about it being an earthquake."  
Holmes only grunted in reply, as the next aftershock struck._  
_


	49. Steal

**Title: To Catch a Thief**

**A/N: Warning, AU (no STUD). This was originally written as my fic entry into the watsons_woes challenge 010, but it unfortunately refused to be long enough to be submitted. Response to #14 Steal.**

**I. Lestrade**  
"Excuse me, Inspector by there's a chap wanting to speak with you," a young constable informed Inspector Lestrade.  
Lestrade frowned, because the consultant he'd hire to help catch the criminal behind a recent rash of tea thefts, Sherlock Holmes, had told him that he wouldn't have anything until tomorrow, and there wasn't anyone else he could think of who would want to speak with him right then.  
Unless the press had gotten wind of the tea thefts, but it was highly unlikely that they would even care about it, anyways.  
"Show them in, Constable," Lestrade commanded.  
"Uh, sir, he's currently in a holding cell at the moment," the constable remarked.  
"Is he asking for me by name?" Lestrade asked.  
The constable nodded.  
_Of course_, Lestrade thought bitterly. _They are always asking for me by name. Why doesn't Gregson ever get asked for by name by criminals?_  
Even as the question took form in his mind, Lestrade knew the answer.  
Gregson's days as a constable had been spent walking a beat in the more affluent sections of London, where petty criminals were pretty much nonexistent, while Lestrade's had been spent in the poorest neighborhoods, where the petty thieves, the prostitutes, and the police knew each other on a first name basis.  
Standing up, Lestrade directed the constable to lead the way.  


* * *

**II. Watson**  
I glared at my flatmate of ten months as the constable left us alone in the cold, damp holding cell.  
"Please tell me you have a plan to get us out of this cell, Holmes, preferably one that doesn't involve a judge," I growled.  
"Of course, I do, Doctor," Holmes informed me.  
"Why do I get the feeling that you've been in this cell before, Holmes?"  
"Probably because I have," he replied. "How is your leg, by the way?"  
"Extremely sore, no thanks to you and your stupidity," I replied. Being forced to walk around with my hands cuffed behind my back and without any sort of external assistance--the constables who had arrested us refused to allow me to keep the weight off my bad leg. They had also taken my cane. And my revolver.  
"I did say that you didn't need to come with me, Watson," Holmes reminded me.  
"You were eying my service revolver as you said that, Holmes."  
"I didn't need you, but I did_ want_ you to come," Holmes admitted softly.  
I looked sharply at my flatmate at this confession.  


* * *

**III. Holmes**  
"I didn't need you, but I did _want_ you to come."  
As those words hung in the air between us, I wondered where that had come from, what had possessed me to admit to what I felt for this man aloud--not to mention to his face.  
I couldn't let him become my friend, it would only end in tragedy, his body lying lifeless in the morgue. I would have to make sure that the Doctor saw reason before it was too late, if it wasn't already too late.  
But what if he saw reason and chose to be my friend anyways?  
Death was no stranger to his life, both as a doctor and as a veteran of the Anglo-Afghan wars, after all.  
"Even the heartless automaton wishes for friendship, is that it, then, Holmes?" the doctor asked.  
I nodded.  
"There's no shame in that, Holmes," he remarked.  
Of course he would say that. And whatever happened to that constable, he said he would go get Inspector Lestrade for me several hours ago--at least, it feels like it has been hours since then. They took my pocket-watch, so I can't be sure of the time.  
"Watson, it's too dangerous for you to be my friend," I said, as blunt as always.  
The doctor rolled his eyes.  
"Holmes, it's worth the danger," he informed me.  
"Death is too high a price to pay."  
"Death is a fact of life, Holmes," he replied. "Death will come to all of us, eventually. What matters is how you lived your life before your time is up."  


* * *

**IV. Lestrade**  
When the Inspector entered the holding cell, he found two coarsely dressed men, neither of whom he knew.  
"Which of you asked to speak with me?" Lestrade asked.  
"He did," the hazel-eyed man replied, indicating his companion. The man's educated accent clashed with his day laborer's clothing.  
Deciding that the man was just down on his luck, a man born into money that he'd gambled away on horses and cards until he had to work an honest job for his dishonest habit, Lestrade turned to the other man in the cell.  
"Well? What is it that you want of me, sir?" the inspector demanded.  
"Oi was 'oping yew could spring us two jailbirds from this 'ere cell, Inspector," the man admitted.  
"I don't help criminals, sir," Lestrade replied, annoyed that anyone would think such a thing of him.  
"Well, then it's a good thing we ain't criminals."  
The man's companion, the one who had spoken first, seemed to find his friend's behavior a bit too much for his taste at this point.  
"Holmes, really," he groused.  
_Holmes?_  
"Spoilsport, Watson," grumbled Holmes.  
Lestrade groaned.  
"What in blazes, Mister Holmes?" the inspector demanded.  
"I was trying to figure out how the thief pulled it off, and the good doctor here kindly volunteered to help me," Holmes explained.  
"Who?" Lestrade asked.  
"John Watson, late of her Majesty's Army Medical Corps," Holmes replied, indicating his friend._  
_


	50. Break

**Title: Radar, Gaydar**

**A/N: Warning, AU (modern), Slash, References to torture. And I'm just presuming that they get old American TV shows in the U.K.... Response to #63 Break.**

"Watson, why did we get into this business?" Holmes asked.  
"Because you like solving crimes, but not dealing with all the paperwork Scotland Yard has to deal with on a daily basis," Watson replied.  
"I was referring to the case, Watson," Holmes immediately pointed out.  
"I know."  
"Of course, you do. You're like that guy in that American TV show Lestrade likes," Holmes agreed.  
"Radar O'Reilly?"  
"Yeah, him."  
"I don't have a teddy bear that I carry around with me though. I just know things before they happen."  
"That hurts, Watson."  
"The rats already nibbling at your toes, Holmes?"  
"Ew, no. Aren't I your teddy bear?" the detective asked.  
"Holmes, did they break your brain while they were breaking your bones?" Watson demanded.  
"Maybe. I can't say for certain."  
"That is not funny, Holmes."  
"Yes, it is."  
"No, it's not."  
"Yes, it is."  
"You're sounding like a broken record now."  
"You're making me, Watson."  
"Am not!"  
"Am too!"  
"Don't you mean 'are too'?"  
"Yeah. Are too!"  
"Am not!"  
"Are too!"  
"Not!"  
"Too!"  
"Not!"  
"Too!"  
"Shut up in there or I'll finish you both right now!"  
"Shutting up now, idiot."  
"Holmes."  
"What?"  
"We don't call our kidnappers names, especially when they are professionals when it comes to methods of torture."  
"You are more of a professional in methods of torture than these kidnappers, Watson."  
"I am a doctor, Holmes, not a criminal who gets off by seeing others in pain."  
"I've seen a biopsy needle before, Watson, you can't fool me," Holmes insisted.  
"I said shut up!" bellowed the guard as he finally got too close to his prisoners._**  
**_


	51. Frozen

**Title: Trust in Dreams**

**A/N: Warning, AU (feline), supernatural elements. Response to #72 Frozen.**

Logic gave his friend a death sentence.  
But he kept on searching the streets of London for his hazel eyes, even as Inspector Lestrade was forced by Scotland Yard procedure to abandon the search for Doctor Watson, leaving what little evidence of the doctor's fate that had been found to collect dust in the records room of New Scotland Yard.  
Sherlock Holmes missed his friend's memorial service because he had thought he had seen Watson, but he lost him in the crowded streets of Whitechapel.  
Mycroft had had quite a few choice words for Holmes as a result.  
But not even Mycroft could convince Holmes that Watson was gone for good, not after the detective dreamt of Watson's tigress companion, Arya, a week after the memorial service...  


* * *

_Sherlock Holmes,_ Arya purred in greeting.  
"Arya," Holmes replied. "What are you doing here?"  
_Here in your dreams?_ the tigress asked.  
"Yes."  
_I am here because we need your help._  
"We?" Holmes tried his best to not get his hopes up, but he did anyways.  
_Yes, Sherlock Holmes, John is alive. He is very weak, however._  
"Where are you?" Holmes asked.  
_In an old abandoned warehouse by the docks, but I fear I may have been spotted carrying John here, so we will have to move on as soon as night falls, if not sooner._  
"Go to the Punchbowl, I believe that is my nearest hideout to where you are," Holmes suggested.  
_And how do you expect me to avoid being spotted getting upstairs?_ Arya asked with a feline smirk.  
"There's a back way in through a trapdoor."  
Arya twitched in response to a sound only she could hear.  
_I must go now, Sherlock Holmes. We have been found out by the men who kidnapped John._  
And with that, Arya was gone.  


* * *

When Holmes arrived at the Punchbowl an hour later, he paused at the foot of the staircase, questioning his willingness to believe that Arya had really come to him in a dream.  
Then he reminded himself that the only way to prove it either way was to keep moving forward, up the stairs to his hideout.  
When he opened the door, darkness greeted him.  
For an instant, he wondered if he was going insane.  
Then amber eyes glinted in the light from behind him in the room, the eyes of a tiger.  
_Close the door, Sherlock Holmes, there's a draft,_ the tigress growled.  
As Holmes' eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness of the room, he saw that Arya was curled around a scantily clothed form--Watson.  
_He's likely got frostbite by this point, at the very least,_ Arya informed the detective as he lit a candle to lift the gloom some so he could see better.  
He wasn't a tiger, after all. Nor was he a Gate-keeper with a feline companion.  
"And at the worst?" Holmes asked.  
_Hypothermia, though only in its earliest stages, from what I can tell,_ Arya replied after giving Watson's neck a quick sniff.  
Holmes decided he didn't want to know what that was about._**  
**_


	52. Illusive

**Title: Catch Me if You Can**

**A/N: Warning, 2009 movieverse. Response to #51 Illusive.**

"Pardon me!" the man cried as he raced past a woman in a lacy pink dress.  
The woman stared after the man, wondering why he was in such a hurry to get to the docks at three in the morning.  
Meanwhile, the man in question had arrived at his destination, an old weather-beaten warehouse that had been abandoned--or at least, appeared to have been abandoned.  
"I can't believe he left his gun behind yet again," the man grumbled softly as he peered through a grimy window. "He claims to be a genius and yet he repeatedly walks into dangerous situations unarmed."  
Down far below him, his flatmate was tied to a chair, two rough men standing guard on either side of him. A third man was asking him questions and slapping his shins with a cane whenever his captive angered him in some way.  
The man at the window, Doctor John Watson, was certain that his bound flatmate, Sherlock Holmes, would find it difficult to walk away once his captor had finished, not with the two broken shin bones he was bound to have soon.  
They would go wonderfully with the dislocated shoulder the idiot had gotten from last night's--which had only been a little over five hour earlier--boxing match.  
Watson wondered if he should start charging for services rendered to his flatmate.  
He'd be quite rich within the week if he did.**_  
_**


	53. Film

**Title: A Night at the Movies**

**A/N: Warning, AU (modern), slash. A domestic scene set in the same 'verse as my Holmes Big Bang fic (which I haven't finished writing yet). Response to #34 Film.**

"What are we watching tonight?" Holmes asked Watson as he sat down on the couch beside his boyfriend.  
"Haven't decided yet," the doctor replied. "I have narrowed the list to a handful of candidates, though."  
"And they are?"  
"'Zodiac', 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow', 'Iron Man', 'Tropic Thunder', 'Alfie', 'Cold Mountain', 'The Closer', 'The Holiday', and 'Home for the Holidays'," replied Watson.  
"Well, let' look at them one by one, alphabetically," Holmes suggested.  
This was a mind game the two played every time they sat down to watch a movie together, a game they played to make sure that they both were happy with the movie they ended up watching that particular night.  
"'Alfie', starring Jude Law and Omar Epps, is about a limo driver who likes having sex," Watson recited from memory.  
"Put it in the sex pile then," Holmes directed.  
Watson took 'Alfie' from the stack on the coffee table in front of him and set it aside.  
"Next up?" Holmes asked.  
"'The Closer', starring Jude Law and--," Watson began, but Holmes interrupted him.  
"Reject pile, pronto," he said.  
Watson sighed--annoyed by Holmes interrupting him--and placed 'The Closer' next to the main stack.  
Before Holmes could prompt him, Watson picked up the next DVD.  
"'Cold Mountain', starring Jude Law and Natalie Portman, is about a Confederate soldier's journey home from a battle."  
"Put it in the sappy romance pile," Holmes directed, earning a raised brow from Watson before the doctor placed the DVD down next to 'Alfie'.  
"Next up?" Holmes asked.  
"'The Holiday', starring Jude Law and Cameron--"  
"Reject pile," Holmes interjected, and 'The Holiday' was placed on top of 'The Closer'.  
"'Homes for the Holidays', starring Robert Downey Junior--"  
"Reject pile."  
"'Iron Man', starring Robert Downey Junior and Terrance Howard and Jeff Bridges and Gweneth Paltrow, is about--"  
"Action pile. Next?"  
"'Tropic Thunder', starring Ben Stiller and Jack Black and--"  
"Reject pile. Why do we even own that movie anyways?"  
"Because you were impressed by Robert Downey Junior's performance in that movie."  
"Ah, yes, that's right. Keep it in the reject pile anyways, Watson."  
"'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow', starring Jude Law and Angelina Jolie and Gweneth Paltrow, is about--"  
"Action pile. Now."  
"'Zodiac', starring--"  
"Reject pile. What does that leave us with?"  
"The sex pile, with 'Alfie'; the sappy romance pile, with 'Cold Mountain'; and the action pile, with 'Iron Man' and 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow'," Watson replied.  
"'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow', Watson," Holmes declared. "I'm in the mood to watch Jude Law fly a plane this evening."**_  
_**


	54. Game

**Title: Perceived Fears**

**A/N: Warning, AU (childhood), Utter fluff. I have no idea how I managed to write such a fluffy ficlet. Also, PeanutTree, what is this fourth wall you speak of? *winks* Response to #60 Game.**

Sherlock frowned when he realized that John was no longer behind him.  
Retracing his steps, he found the older boy sitting on a large rock beside the path, gasping for breath.  
"Are you alright, John?" Sherlock asked worriedly. He had vague memories of his mother--and then John's father--having a hard time getting enough air into her lungs before she died. He didn't want to lose John too.  
"Yeah," wheezed John. "I'm fine, Sherlock."  
"You don't look fine, John," objected Sherlock.  
"I don't have what your mum and my dad had, Sherlock," John observed, his own quick mind spotting what had his friend and step-brother so worried.  
"But you're having a hard time breathing, just like they did."  
"It's not consumption, Sherlock," John insisted.  
"What else could it be?"  
"Asthma," John pointed out, no longer wheezing.  
"You don't have asthma."  
"True," John agreed. "But, like consumption, asthma can make breathing difficult for a person."  
"But if you don't have asthma nor consumption, what left you so breathless that you couldn't keep up with me just now?" Sherlock wondered aloud.  
"A twisted ankle," John promptly remarked, indicating his left ankle, which was swollen.  
"Your ankle? But how?" Sherlock heatedly demanded, unable to believe John's claim because it didn't add up--or at least, it didn't appear to add up.  
"I ran on it, trying to catch up to you so I could ask you to slow down or else wait up for me, Sherlock," John admitted. "I wasn't going to let you wander around the Woods by yourself."  
"So you were breathless from the pain?"  
John nodded.  
"Perhaps you are too loyal to me, John."  
"Never," declared John. "It's just that I know you all too well, Sherlock."  
"What is that supposed to mean?"  
"You know very well what I mean, Sherlock."  
"Just because I got us lost on the way to the Norbury Farm doesn't mean I can't read a map, John."  
"You claimed to know a shortcut, Sherlock."  
"We still won the scavenger hunt, didn't we?"  
"That's not the point."  
"What is the point, then?" Sherlock cheekily asked.  
John glared sullenly at him.  
"I guess your twisted ankle is turning you into a grouchy bear, John," Sherlock observed. "Let's get you home and have Father take a look at it."**_  
_**


	55. Natural

**Title: Don't Blink**

**A/N: Warning, AU (HOUND), supernatural elements. Yes, there's at least two (possibly three) Doctor Who/Torchwood/Sarah Jane Adventures references in this one. Response to #62 Natural.**

___"Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable it may seem, is the truth."_  
His friend's words echo'd out of memory, a futile attempt of his mind to reign in his feelings of utter terror and panic.  
The great, ravenous hound before him had cornered him in the stony remains of an ancient pagan temple--though it wasn't really a proper temple, Watson could think of no other name for the structure.  
Watson wished he hadn't lost his revolver during the chase over the moors as the hound drew nearer.  
"Oi! Over here, you great big mongrel!" shouted a female voice.  
The hound hesitated, unsure of whether it needed to deal with the speaker before mauling the doctor.  
Unfortunately the young woman was too far away to be perceived as an immediate threat by the hound, so it turned its attention back to Watson.  
"Run, miss!" Watson directed his would-be savior. "It'll come after you once it's finished with me for sure!"  
"None of that nonsense, now, Doctor Watson," the woman retorted as she picked something up from the ground by her feet, perhaps a stone?  
The hound yelped in pained fright as a fiery meteorite struck its hindquarters.  
With an ominous snarl at the doctor--as if to say 'I'll be back'--, the hound turned around and lunged at the woman, who had thrown the meteor at it.  
The woman stood her ground, and with a single word of command, a cage of blue fire ensnared the hound.  
Watson approached the woman and the caged hound, unsure as to what he had just been witness to.  
"I'm Gwynhwyfar, but you can call me 'Gwyn', Doctor," the woman informed him.  
"What are you?" Watson asked.  
Gwyn smiled.  
"Some would call me a witch, or a fairy," she admitted. "But I'm neither."  
"What then are you?"  
"I'm as human as you are, John Watson," Gwyn replied.  
The doctor's gaze fell on the caged hound.  
"You can't tell anyone about this encounter, Doctor," Gwyn said. "Not that anyone would believe you, but still."  
"But how--" Watson began to ask.  
"I'm sorry, Doctor, but I can't tell you any more than what I already have. In fact, I really shouldn't even be speaking with you now. You're just lucky that I was given this assignment and not someone like my twin brother Ceri, who does everything by the book without exception...oh, I shouldn't have said that either."  
Watson was confused by pretty much everything Gwyn said.  
But there was one thing she had said, that he did understand.  
"Don't worry, Gwyn, I will not tell a soul about what happened here," he promised. "But I do have one question, one you do not have to answer if you are not able to answer it."  
Gwyn was curious about what the doctor wanted to know, so she told him to go ahead and ask his question.  
"Is that the Hound of the Baskervilles?" Watson asked.  
"Now that is a question I can answer, Doctor," Gwyn replied.  
"Well then, is it?"  
"No, it is not the Hound of the Baskervilles," Gwyn replied.  
"Gwynhwyfar Barrowman!" faintly cried a voice.  
"That's my dad, Jaspar Barrowman," Gwyn informed Watson. "It's time for me to go."  
"You are taking that hound with you, right?" Watson asked.  
Gwyn smiled.  
"Of course, Doctor," she replied. "Don't blink and you might get to see what my world is like."  
Watson wondered what Gwyn meant by that, but he never got to find out, because he blinked and Gwyn and the caged hound were gone, as if they were never there at all.  
True to his word, Doctor Watson never told another soul about his encounter with Gwynhwyfar Barrowman, not even Holmes.**_  
_**


	56. Drop

**Title: Admit It**

**A/N: Response to Prompt #27 Drop. There's a Batman reference in this one.**

"You are an idiot, Holmes," Watson declared.  
"I think you've said that already," Holmes observed.  
"I don't care," the doctor snapped as he tied off the bandage he'd just wrapped around the detective's head. "It needs to be said again, since only an idiot would try to jump after a professional acrobat like that, Holmes. You're lucky you didn't break your neck!"  
"Well, I did land on the Acrobat, Watson," Holmes observed. "He cushioned my landing quite well."  
Watson glared at him, clearly not happy with the stunt in question.  
"Would you rather he got away again?" the detective asked.  
Watson sighed, and Holmes knew that he had the doctor exactly where he wanted.  
"Holmes, surely Constables Wolsey and Greyson could have handled the Acrobat?" Watson asked.  
Holmes fidgeted, trying to think a way out of the situation he now found himself in, as he had not known that Watson had known which constables had been placed at the end of the street.  
If Watson knew their names, then he could very well know that Constable Greyson's parents were acrobats in an American travelling circus, as were his brothers and sisters.  
"Holmes?" Watson asked, starting to get worried about his friend's silence.  
Holmes decided to throw caution to the winds and drop all pretenses--the wisest course of action at hand, he'd figured.  
"I didn't want to chance him getting away again, least of all from us," he admitted, clinging desperately to one last pretense--that he had not wanted to be made a fool of in front of Scotland Yard.  
"You didn't jump after him the last _two_ times he got away from us," Watson pointed out. "And that was after he managed to get away from Scotland Yard five times. Admit it, Holmes, you didn't want to be outfoxed by a criminal in front of Lestrade."  
Holmes hung his head.  
"I admit it, Watson," he said softly.


	57. Arrogant

**Title: Alliances**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (modern), Slash, Adult Concepts. Response to Prompt #58 Arrogant.**

"You know, this wouldn't be so bad if you would just admit to him that you care about him," Timothy Gregson observed as the bartender handed us our drinks.  
Leave it to Inspector Timothy Gregson to make it sound like I was sexually attracted to anyone who wasn't my dear beloved Mary.  
"Timothy, I do not want to have sex with Sherlock Holmes," I insisted, taking a swig of my root beer--no alcohol for me, ever again.  
"Don't be so foolish, Jimmy," my partner replied. "I'm talking about his flatmate, John Watson. He's got to be a veritable _god_ in the bedroom," Timothy insisted.  
Did I mention that my partner is probably the gayest man in all of England, if not the world?  
Because he is. And he's absolutely convinced that he can make me, a man happily married to a beautiful woman with a kid on the way, gay.  
I've learned to just play along when he's in the mood to try and match me up with someone, and this time was no different.  
"And how do you figure that, Timothy?" I asked, wishing I could drown myself in enough alcohol to forget this conversation permanently.  
"Well, for starters, he's a doctor," Timothy observed.  
"For starters?" What had I gotten myself into this time?  
"I've got a list of reasons, Jimmy," he informed me. "You want to hear them all, right?"  
Even though I knew I would regret--who was I kidding, I already was regretting it--, I told him I wanted to hear all of the reasons.  
"Good man," Timothy informed me before continuing with his list.


	58. Slice

**Title: Backlash**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (modern), references to STD's, vampires...There's a bit of information you'll need to know prior to reading this ficlet--the bad guy killed a man named "Andrew Lachlan" and stole his identity. Now, no one--not even the killer himself--knows his real identity, so he continues to go by the name of "Andrew Lachlan". Response to Prompt #67 Slice.**

Lachlan grinned like a Cheshire cat as he licked his wicked blade clean, savoring the metallic tang of Doctor John Watson's blood.  
"Aren't you worried that you'll get an STD?" his current source of fresh blood asked, his blood already clotting where his insane captor had sliced open his arms with his knife.  
"Ever the doctor, I see," he observed, sheathing his knife. "But I'll humor you, since I am in a good mood and answer your question."  
_Lucky me_, Watson thought bitterly.  
"No, Doctor Watson, I am not worried about catching a STD from the blood I consume, because I harvest only from the best," he continued. "Though most of the time, I raid the local blood bank when I need to eat."  
"You really expect me to believe that you are a vampire?" Watson demanded.  
"Of course, Doctor," Lachlan simply replied.  
And then he was gone, leaving Watson alone in the cold, dark room that Lachlan had imprisoned so many others in before the doctor.  
Watson prayed that Holmes would find him before Andrew Lachlan had drained him of his blood with that wicked sharp blade of his.  
In that dark room, there was nothing with which to mark the passage of time except for Lachlan's visits. Watson began to think of one day being the length of he was left alone in the cell between blood-lettings, instead of the traditional perception that he had been taught in school--that a day was the length of time it took the earth to complete one rotation on its axis.  
He never realized that Lachlan's visits were irregular, that Lachlan often went several days (in the traditional sense) without feeding off of him, without slicing open the doctor's arms with his wicked blade that he carried around with him everywhere he went, like a toddler's security blanket.  
And perhaps, for Lachlan, it really was a security blanket.


	59. Fag

**Title: Linguistic Differences**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (modern), slash, spoilers (for my holmes_big_bang fic), smoking, Harry Lockhart, language. This is a crossover with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. The full, un-censored version of this ficlet can be found on my livejournal. Response to Prompt #70 Fag.**

_Hi, Harry Lockhart here. Again. I guess you want to know why Perry hated Sherlock Holmes so much when they first joined forces after I got kidnapped last spring.  
Well, so did I, but Perry refused point blank to tell me.  
Luckily for you and I both, however, Holmes (Valerie Holmes, mind you) also wanted to know the story. And she doesn't take 'no' for an answer when it comes to knowledge.  
She pestered Perry every day for two months before he finally broke down and told her.  
Holmes promptly shared the story with me and now I am sharing it with you. Just don't tell Perry about this, Holmes and I both might lose our jobs if Perry finds out about this._

Sherlock Holmes took a deep breath, inhaling the calming smell of tobacco smoke. A simple case of a man cheating on his wife, there was no reason for him to be so nervous as to go through an entire pack of cigarettes on a single stakeout.  
Mycroft would insist that it wasn't nerves, but the fact that Holmes was borrowing his car, and as he was the younger brother, it was second nature to Holmes to annoy his elder brother by doing things like smoking an entire pack of cigarettes in the space of two hours in his car.  
Holmes extinguished his last cigarette as the man he'd been hired to follow left the bar, accompanied by another man.  
"Let's walk to Hyde Park, Perry, it's lovely this time of year," Holmes' client's husband declared.  
The new man, "Perry", agreed with the idea and the two strolled off down the street towards Hyde Park, forcing Holmes to follow the pair on foot.

_As a nice favor to you, I'll cut out the boring bit here and get right to the juicy bit. To summarize what exactly happens in the boring bit, Sherlock Holmes tails his client's husband and Perry all the way to Hyde Park on foot, where he figures out that his client's husband isn't cheating on her, he's trying to figure out who is embezzling money from his boss (who apparently is Sherlock Holmes' brother, by the way) and the mysterious "Perry" is the private investigator he hired to help him (apparently these two go way back)._

Holmes watched his target leave, now that he no longer needed to follow him. Once he was gone, Holmes turned his attention to the second man, "Perry", as he walked over to him.  
"Hey, do you happen to have a cigarette on you?" Perry asked.  
"Nope, sorry, all out of fags, I'm afraid," Holmes replied, earning a glare from the American PI.

_Apparently, in England, a 'fag' is another word for 'cigarette'. Why they have more than one word for the same thing, I don't have a clue._

"Just because I am gay does not mean that I am a 'fag'," he growled.

_Oh shoot! I almost forgot, Perry was a whole lot more fit back when this all happened. And Sherlock Holmes was a whole lot younger too._

"I was not referring to your sexuality, sir," Holmes explained. "I was referring to cigarettes."  
"Whatever you--"

_Hello, this is Perry Van Shrike speaking. Whatever lies my assistant here has been telling you, don't believe them, unless you like looking stupid. I don't know why, but some people just have a fatal attraction for stupidity, like Harry here._


	60. Change

**Title: The Difference Between War and Peace**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (modern), mentions of suicide. To make up for the lack of Watson in the previous ficlet, here's some ficlet lacking Holmes. Response to Prompt #35 Change.**

As he watched London coming to life with the rising of the sun outside his bedroom window, Watson made an unsettling realization.  
In the eighteen months he'd been in the mountains of Afghanistan, hunting terrorist and the Taliban, London hadn't changed at all.  
Sure, there were stoplights at intersections that weren't there before he'd been deployed, for example, but the city's soul, the aura that made London _London_, hadn't changed at all.  
But he most certainly had changed in those eighteen months, and to a considerable degree, both physically and mentally.  
When he had left London for Afghanistan, Watson had been in the prime of health, the star of his university's rugby and track teams, blissfully ignorant of the heartlessly cruel reality of the war he had signed up for. Like many who had gone before him (and like many who would follow in his footsteps), Watson probably didn't think about what it really meant to go to war, that they were going to a foreign land and murdering complete strangers in their beds.  
Which was pretty much what they were doing there in Afghanistan, really.  
But when Watson had been sent back home, he had changed so much that he might as well have been a different person.  
His skin was dark from the tan he'd gotten from eighteen months spent in the tropics. But in spite of his nut-brown tan, he was noticeably pale, a hallmark of his ruined health.  
He couldn't even stand on his own two feet without some sort of support, and even then, he couldn't stay upright like that for more than a handful of minutes--though the doctor who had been in charge of his treatment at the VA hospital he'd been living at until he'd found the rooms at Baker Street that he now resided in, splitting the rent with the strangest man Watson had ever had the chance to meet in his life--which was saying a lot, since he had met a lot of strange people while he was in med school, and that's not even taking into account the strange behaviors he had witnessed his classmates doing--, insisted that he'd be able to stand on his own once he had recovered some.  
At the age of twenty-nine, he already had been honorably discharged from the Army, on account of his injuries.  
And if something didn't change soon, he probably wouldn't live long enough to see his thirtieth birthday._  
_


	61. Jobless

_In the previous ficlet, there was a line that could have been worded better. This was brought to my attention by sagredo, who informed me that my language is "kind of ambiguous and may be taken to mean something some people, myself included, would find offensive given current events." While I will not go back and rephrase the line in question (as the phrasing was on purpose, with the intent of expressing Watson's state of mind during the time frame covered by the ficlet), I do want to mention that if you were offended by what I wrote, I apologize for the offense, as that was not my intention at all._

**Title: Beyond the Scarlet Study**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (modern). A continuation of the previous ficlet. Response to Prompt #44 Jobless.**

Holmes never knew why he actually offered to take his flatmate along with him on that first case, but after witnessing how well the doctor had handled being poisoned by Hope (mainly, by remaining calm and not losing his head), he knew that he would rather have Watson watching his back than any member of Scotland Yard from that point forward.  
Of course, that would have to wait for the doctor to regain what little health he'd had before Hope's attempt on his life, Holmes reminded himself as he looked up from the book on natural poisons he had "borrowed" from his flatmate to check that he was still resting peacefully.  
Fortunately, the doctor was still fast asleep, sleeping off the deadly poison he'd been exposed to the night before last.  
Jefferson Hope had been the star of an American soap called "Nerdstar", at least until his wife, Rachel, died of a drug overdose.  
Unwilling to believe that his wife had been hiding a drug addiction from him, Jefferson Hope had held numerous press conferences following Rachel Hope's death, demanding that the doctors who had unwittingly supplied her be held accountable for her death.  
Even after a court ruled that Strangerson and Greber had not been remiss in fulfilling their jobs as doctors in Rachel's death, Hope would not accept that his beloved wife had died of a self-administered drug overdose.  
Once he had exhausted all legal means of revenge, Jefferson Hope disappeared from the public eye, biding his time until the time was right.  
Then threatening letters began to arrive at Strangerson's and Greber's clinics and at their homes as well.  
Strangerson and Greber fled the country, fearing for their lives. But they weren't fast enough, because Hope managed to poison Strangerson after the former soap star had drawn the doctor away from Greber outside their London hotel.  
That was when Sherlock Holmes (and John Watson) got involved.  
But they were too late to save Greber, who was also poisoned, even as Sherlock Holmes began his search for Jefferson Hope.  
Watson unwittingly made himself Jefferson's next target when he happened to cross paths with the actor at the clinic the former army surgeon volunteered at whenever he was able to (his health was still quite fragile) and happened to remark to the disguised Hope that he shared rooms with Sherlock Holmes.  
Unlike Strangerson and Greber, however, Watson was familiar with the exotic poison Hope preferred, and as a result, Watson had been able to (with Holmes' help) concoct an antidote in time to reverse the poison's deadly effects.  
"Holmes?" a weak voice called, interrupting the detective's thoughts.  
"How are you feeling, Doctor?" Holmes asked, setting aside the book he'd been reading to help Watson sit upright on his bed.  
"Tired, but much better than the last time you asked that question," Watson replied with a yawn._  
_


	62. Crucify

**Title: Cruel Religion**

**A/N: Warnings, violence. I've finally figured out that there really is no limit to what torture I will put Holmes and Watson through in my writing with this ficlet. And it bugs me to no end that I had to have Mauley hammer those nails in the wrong places, but they didn't know any better back in the Victorian Era. Response to Prompt #6 Crucify.**

He bit his lower lip to keep from screaming as Mauley hammered the huge nail home thru his feet.  
The metallic tang of blood filled his mouth as he bit down hard enough to draw blood.  
As he felt Mauley's hand adjusting his right hand, positioning it against the rough wood of the cross he was tied to, something inside the detective finally snapped and he struggled, trying to make things difficult for his crazed captor and buy Watson a little bit more time to find him.  
Waves of agony engulfed him as his desperate struggles against the ropes on his wrists and Mauley's restraining hands jarred his already nailed feet, but Holmes did not let that stop him, urging himself on with the fear that if Mauley managed to nail his hands, he would never be able to use them ever again, to be dependent on someone else (probably Watson) for every little thing he needed.  
And to a man as independent as Sherlock Holmes, it would be a fate worse than death, and so he struggled and fought against the inevitable nailing of his hands.  
But even his great mind could overcome only so much pain, and he eventually succumbed to the pain emanating from his feet.  
As everything faded to black, Holmes thought he heard Watson cry his name, but he wasn't sure whether he'd imagined his friend's voice into existence at that moment or not.  
Not that it really matter to him, not at the moment between consciousness and the blessed black nothingness of unconsciousness where he had faltered for a moment just long enough to hear his friend's cry before the black nothingness engulfed him and he knew no more._  
_


	63. Weapon

**Title: Never Unarmed**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (ehc). Response to Prompt #32 Weapon.**

Watson entered the sitting room of 221B Baker Street after a long day at his practice-a day full of hypochondriacs, day laborers with infections that could have been avoided if they had only come to see him sooner, unhappy infants, and restless children getting into anything and everything-, only to find his flatmate, Sherlock Holmes, teaching his adopted daughter, Elizabeth, hand-to-hand combat.  
"Oh, hi there, Doctor," Elizabeth called in answer to his greeting, as she easily evaded a blow to her head by ducking under Holmes' swing and lightly punching him in a sensitive area.  
"Excellent, Elizabeth," Holmes said with only a slight squeak to his voice. "Though I do hope that in a real fight, you would hit that particular part of your opponent's anatomy a bit harder than you did mine just now."  
"Of course," Elizabeth agreed. "I figured that it wouldn't be in my best interests to actually incapacitate my teacher using the methods he was teaching me."  
Holmes nodded, not wasting his breath to verbalize his agreement with Elizabeth's observation.  
"Well, that is enough for today, Elizabeth," he said instead. "We'll work some more on your fighting stance, then I'll teach you how to flip your opponent, tomorrow. Now go clean yourself up before Mrs. Hudson brings up dinner."  
"Yeah, we wouldn't want Mrs. Hudson having another chance at lecturing you about being a proper parent, now would we," muttered Elizabeth with a smirk as she left the sitting room for her room.  
Once she was gone, Watson asked, "What was that all about, Holmes?"  
"Mrs. Hudson doesn't approve of what I'm teaching Elizabeth, apparently," Holmes replied, his bewilderment at the landlady's distress over walking in on Holmes teaching Elizabeth how to defend herself easily apparent to the doctor._  
_


	64. Caress

**Title: Cruel Tricks**

**A/N: Warnings, implied slash (if you desire it to be so), character death. I may expand this ficlet at some future date. Response to Prompt #85 Caress.**

He could feel the warmth fading out of his friend's body as his great heart fell silent, unable to continue pumping when all of the blood that was supposed to be flowing thru it was instead congealing in a crimson pool beneath them.  
"No, not you too, Holmes," he moaned, unwilling to allow his friend to die yet again, this time for good, and so soon after he was returned to him so unexpectedly like he had been too.  
"Watson."  
The dead body was speaking to him, calling his name.  
Watson wondered if this was what it was like to go mad.  
"Watson, wake up."  
He desperately wished for this to all be a terrible nightmare, that he could comply with the corpse's voice and wake up to a world where Sherlock Holmes still lived.  
But he knew better than to believe that his wish would be granted.  
"Watson, look at me," Holmes demanded.  
"How can you demand me to look at you when I already am looking at you, Holmes?" the doctor tearfully demanded.  
"Because that's not my dead body you're cradling in your arms, Watson."  
The doctor dropped the corpse as though it had burned him with a sudden burst of flame and backed away from it, right into his very much alive friend.  
"Holmes!" Watson exclaimed as he laid eyes on his dearest friend. "But how?"  
"An impostor took my place," the detective replied. "You would have likely started to suspect something of the sort was going on if the charade had gone on for a few more hours."  
"Well, I am glad that you are still alive, Holmes."  
"As am I, Watson. But I am more concerned with the fact that an attempt was made on my life."_  
_


	65. Inject

**Title: Addictions**

**A/N: Warnings, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, implied slash. Response to Prompt #29 Inject.**

"I do hope that you are not planning on using that, Holmes," remarked the doctor, referring to the Morroccan case that was lying on top of a stack of papers on the floor beside the prone detective.  
"I'm well past the planning stage, Watson," slurred Holmes.  
"Are you drunk?" Watson asked in surprise, as he hadn't been able to smell any sort of alcoholic spirit on his friend's breath.  
"I figured you'd rather I be drunk than use the cocaine," Holmes observed.  
Watson winced slightly at the grammatical error in Holmes' observation, but he didn't say anything about it.  
Instead, he sighed.  
"Was I wrong, Watson?" Holmes asked, oddly (to Watson, at least) concerned with pleasing the doctor.  
Watson figured it was just the alcohol in his friend's system talking, and he was probably right.  
"No, Holmes, you weren't wrong," Watson replied. "It's just that I'd rather you were completely sober more than anything."  
"Being sober is entirely over-rated, Watson," Holmes promptly observed, his drunken slurring suddenly gone. "But I suppose I could try dealing with my black moods your way this time."  
"Were you _pretending_ to be drunk?" exclaimed Watson as the detective got up off the floor.  
"Obviously," Holmes smirked. "I had you fooled, did I not?"  
"For the most part, yes, you did," Watson admitted. "But you _were_ drinking, Holmes."  
"Oh?" Holmes asked, sure that his friend was bluffing, unaware on a conscious level what his subconscious mind had already figured out-that any drug he used (or abused) would interfere with his powers of observation, no matter the method of delivery.  
"You may not reek of alcohol, Holmes, but I can see the empty bottle of spirits under the chair beside you," Watson remarked.  
If Holmes had been sober, he would have challenged Watson's claim by pointing out other, equally logical explanations for the glass bottle.  
But that had been a gamble Watson had been willing to take._  
_


	66. Want

**Title: What Every Woman Wants**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (unexpected), married!Holmes, female!Watson. Response to Prompt #11 Want.**

Holmes wanted to do something special for his wife's birthday, the first one she'd had after their marriage, but he couldn't think of what he should do, it was probably going to be too hot or too stormy for what he wanted to do.  
So he went to his brother for advice.  
"Make several plans, Sherlock, I shouldn't have to tell you that," Mycroft promptly observed.  
"But it will cost several pounds to make everything perfect for one plan, let alone several. But that is not the problem, Brother," Holmes replied.  
"What is then?"  
"I don't want to say to Watson that we'll go out for a picnic lunch if it's not raining and then have it rain. I want to come up with a plan that I can use, no matter the weather."  
"I dare say you could have a picnic in your room, it likely has enough mold growing in it to replace the grass at Hyde Park," observed Mycroft.  
Holmes scowled.  
"That only happened once, Brother, can't you let that go?" he growled.  
"And risk your beloved wife waking up to a room covered in fungus? I don't think so," Mycroft declared.  
"She keeps the room free of fungus for me, Brother, so I don't think you need to worry about that any longer."  
"She is only human, Sherlock."  
"Sometimes, I wonder about that," Holmes admitted, before he resumed fretting over what he was going to do for Watson's birthday in two weeks.  
"Maybe you should just ask her what she wants, Sherlock," Mycroft suggested.  
"But then it wouldn't be a surprise," Holmes objected.  
"She knows when her birthday is, Sherlock, so it wouldn't have been a surprise anyways," Mycroft observed._  
_


	67. Store

**Title: Expectation**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (unexpected), married!Holmes, female!Watson. This ficlet was inspired in part by a description of the room I share with my sister made by my mom. Response to Prompt #59 Store.**

"Holmes, I can't prepare the nursery by myself," Watson announced as she stuck her head into the sitting room. "Get over here right now."  
Holmes grumbled as he got up off the couch and walked over to where his wife stood in the doorway that connected the sitting room to the room that they had once several years ago turned into a nursery before it ended up being used once more as a store room after Watson's miscarriage.  
Holmes' first impression on entering that room for the first time since his return to life was that some giant pack rat or magpie had made themselves at home in the room, so full of odds and ends was the room.  
"Should I be concerned about the safety of the crib?" Watson asked, holding up a tray of glass bottle filled with various poisons.  
"Only if the bottles have cracks in them," Holmes immediately replied, taking the tray from his wife.  
As fate would have it, however, they would end up getting a new crib, two in fact. For little did they know then, that Watson was pregnant with twins, a rare thing in those times.  
And in those days, such a pregnancy often ended in the death of the mother-to-be._  
_


	68. Slick

**Title: Icy Paths**

**A/N: I don't particularly like how this one came out. Response to Prompt #94 Slick.**

Holmes could only watch in helpless horror from where he stood beside the sitting room window of 221B Baker Street as Watson slipped on the icy cobblestones, leaving him vulnerable to a passing thief who eagerly leapt on the chance to rob the doctor.  
Holmes moved slowly away from the window, but what happened next made him stay at the window.  
As the thief knelt beside the prone doctor to rifle his pockets, Watson whacked the man with his cane.  
The thief went down, clutching both of his shins.  
Holmes figured that his presence would be welcome at this point, so he raced out of the sitting room, down the stairs, and out the front door.  
"Watson!" the detective breathlessly shouted as he crossed Baker Street, not even caring whether he was running in front of a cab or not-which, of course, he wasn't, since it was much too early for anyone who would be able to afford a cab to be traversing Baker Street.  
The only acknowledgement the doctor gave him was a slight wave of his free hand, the other restraining the would-be thief.  
"Watson, are you hurt?" Holmes asked once he had reached his flatmate's side.  
"Nothing serious, Holmes," Watson answered, his voice tight with pain. "Could you hold this man down, gently mind you, while I examine his legs?"  
"Certainly, Watson," the detective replied, and he did as the doctor had bidden him to do.  
"Oi'm sorry fer spookin' yew loik tha', Doctor," whimpered the thief. "Oi wasn't tryin' ta nick anything."  
"It's alright, lad, I'm not angry with you," Watson said soothingly. "Now, please, save your breath, because it's going to hurt quite a bit more when we move you inside, where it's warmer."  
"Watson, shouldn't we call Scotland Yard and let them deal with this man? You need to rest," Holmes asked, completely confused by the doctor's words to the man who had just tried to rob him.  
"Scotland Yard doesn't need to be involved, Holmes," Watson informed the detective. "Now, carefully lift him, making sure to support his shins so that they don't move around or hit anything, and let's bring him up to our sitting room, where it's much warmer and certainly easier on my war wounds."  


* * *

Holmes sat the man down on the sofa, as Watson had directed him to.  
But even though the detective had done exactly as the doctor had directed him to do, the man was pale and glistening with sweat by the time Watson injected a dose of morphine into his arm.  
Holmes frowned at the tattoos that decorated the man's arms as Watson splinted his broken right shin.  
"What is it, Holmes?" the doctor asked softly once he had finished tending to the man's injuries.  
"His arms," the detective replied. "I have never seen anything like them before."  
"It's called 'henna'," Holmes," the doctor informed him after glancing at his newest patient's arms.  
"I wasn't referring to the ink used, Watson," muttered the detective crossly._  
_


	69. Treatment

**Title: The Lies Kept**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (DYING). This one was slightly inspired by Protector of the Grey Fortress and KCS' "Vows Made in Storms". Response to Prompt #88 Treatment.**

"You are a lucky man, Sherlock," Colin Ainstree remarked as he mixed the second dose of the cure to his colleague's pathogen into a glass of water.  
As he set the glass down on the bedside table beside the ailing detective, he added, "I know you don't want your friend to worry over you, but I don't think it's worth it to outright lie to him either."  
"It's not your concern, Colin, about what I do with respects to Doctor Watson," Holmes grumbled.  
"You just sent the poor man to retrieve the man that you told him had murdered you," Ainstree observed. "You know that he is terrified that you will die while he is off on that errand."  
"But I won't die, not with half of the cure in my body," Holmes childishly objected.  
"Doctor Watson doesn't know that," Ainstree pointed out as he placed everything the detective had told him he would need to create the illusion of Smith's deadly infection exactly where he had been directed to place them.  
"And yet, here you are, assisting me in deceiving him," Holmes pointed out. "What does that say about you, cousin?"  
"It says a lot about how well I know you, Sherlock," Ainstree coolly replied.  
The two men looked up as the sound of voices reached them from the foot of the stairs far below them.  
"Watson's back," Holmes observed.  
Ainstree bit back a sarcastic retort, knowing from years of experience that it wouldn't be worth the effort to engage in a battle of wits with Sherlock Holmes-and especially when he was as sick as he was at present.  
"Hide in the doctor's old room, Colin," the detective ordered. "Quickly, before he comes upstairs."  
Ainstree did as he was told, even though he was sorely tempted to let the doctor see him._  
_


	70. Trample

**Title: Your Room is a Pigsty, Holmes**

**A/N: Warnings, 2009 movieverse. I so channeled my mom with this one. Response to Prompt #26 Trample.**

"You know, if you picked up your things after you were done with them, we wouldn't be having this problem," grumbled Watson as he helped his flatmate search through the mess that was his room for his magnifying glass.  
"Even if I picked up after myself as you and Nanny seem to want me to do, Watson, I still wouldn't be able to find anything," Holmes insisted.  
Watson frowned at the detective's claim, as he demanded, "How do you figure that, Holmes?"  
"Simple, Watson," the detective replied. "If I put my things away as you and Nanny want me to, I would not have enough room for everything, not to mention I would have to get up out of my comfortable perch on the floor to get to my things when I have a breakthrough on a difficult case."  
"God forbid you have to walk three feet to-" Watson began to say, when he was interrupted by the crunch of glass underfoot.  
"I think we've found my magnifying glass," Holmes grumbled. "What do you think, Doctor?"  
Watson rifled through the stack of papers he had just carelessly stepped on, and much to the doctor's dismay, he found that he had indeed just stepped on the detective's magnifying glass.  
Holding up the broken glass so that Holmes could see the damage, Watson informed the detective, "And here's another reason why you should pick up your things when you're done with them, Holmes."  
Holmes scowled at the doctor as he snatched his glass from him.  
As he studied the glass' damaged lens, Watson asked, "Well, Holmes, how bad is it? Do I owe you a new one?"  
Holmes ignored him, as he brought the glass over to his cluttered bedside table.  
"Holmes?" Watson called, wondering whether or not Holmes was actually going for his revolver right then._  
_


	71. Stoic

**Title: Old Faithful**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (empath), 2009 movieverse, supernatural elements. Response to Prompt #13 Stoic.**

Holmes had always hated depending on someone else, as his flatmate had quickly discovered the first time the fiercely independent detective had fallen ill with a nasty strain of influenza that he'd picked up from one of his informants.  
But after seven years of the doctor's unwaivering devotion to the detective's well-being, Holmes had grown accustomed to Watson's badgering.  
And so, as a result of the doctor's absence from Baker Street, Holmes lay on the floor of his room, slowly dying from an infected knife wound in his right thigh, desperately clinging to life by his formidable will alone for a few more days, because in about three or four more days (he wasn't entirely confident in his perception of the passage of time at present), Watson would return from his honeymoon in Sussex, and would most certainly stop by to check on his former flatmate and dear friend on his way home from the train station.  
Especially if Mary Watson had her way...  
The ringing of the doorbell interrupted his fevered thoughts on the near future and his health.  
Nanny answered the door without any rude bidding on the detective's part.  
Much to Holmes' annoyance, the unwelcome guests (a man and a woman, if Holmes' deductions were anything to go by, and they usually were) spoke too softly for him to observe more than a tiny handful of traits to fuel his preliminary deductions about them. And to add insult to injury, Nanny followed suit so that Holmes could not discern what she was saying either. Holmes was certain that Nanny was being so infuriating on purpose.  
But instead of getting up and moving to a location much better suited to eavesdropping like he normally would have, Holmes remained where he was.  
In fact, he wasn't entirely sure that he would have been able to had he tried, if Holmes was entirely honest with himself (which he currently wasn't).  
The creaking of the hinges on his bedroom door was the only warning Holmes had before the calloused hands of a doctor cruelly began to search the detective's body for injuries.  
As Holmes bit back a whimper of pain (the intruder had found the infected knife wound), a familiar voice began to lecture his unwilling patient about his trust issues.  
"Watson," croaked Holmes, his voice raspy from disuse.  
"Don't talk, Holmes, save what strength you have left to fight this infection," the doctor ordered.  
The detective wondered why the doctor even tried to get him to shut up, he knew him well enough to know that nothing-and no one-could keep Sherlock Holmes quiet when he didn't want to be quiet, and this time was not an exception.  
"Watson, you're here," Holmes rasped, in the hopes that by stating the obvious, he would get the doctor to be so concerned about his mind that he would be more tolerant about letting the detective speak.  
There was a very good reason that Homes willingly relied on Watson, a reason that Holmes himself had taken for granted so many times that he had forgotten about it-the empathic link that tied the two of them together.  
"Holmes, I could feel your pain from all the way in Sussex," the doctor informed him as he assessed the extent of the infection. "Mary insisted that we leave Sussex on the next train for London, but it had stormed the previous evening, knocking over several large trees onto the tracks. It took them three days to clear the rails enough for our train to safely reach London, and I spent every second of those days praying that you had had your leg seen by a doctor, even as I began to burn with the heat of your fever, Holmes."  
As the doctor spoke of the pain he had endured in those three days of waiting, his wife entered Holmes' room unannounced, Watson's black bag in one hand, a pitcher of cool water in the other, several clean rags draped over either arm._  
_


	72. Sick

**Title: The Downside to Telepathy**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (empath, DYING), 2009 movieverse, supernatural elements. Yet again, I am revisiting DYING. Response to Prompt #66 Sick.**

"John, are you alright?" Mary asked, fairly radiant with concern for her husband. "You're burning with fever."  
"It's not my fever," Watson morosely replied. "It's Holmes who is actually sick."  
"Why don't you go to him and tend to him?" Mary asked.  
"It's a tropical disease, one I am unfamiliar with, Mary," Watson explained. "Holmes has gone to a doctor I recommended who specializes in such things."  
"How on earth did Sherlock catch a tropical disease here in London, John!" exclaimed Mary.  
"This case he's working on right now, the murder of Victor Savage, well, Holmes figured out how Culverton Smith killed him, and the man infected Holmes with the very same illness for his troubles," Watson explained.  
"But surely you can do something for him, John!" objected Mary, aghast at the thought of the two men dearest to her helplessly suffering.  
"I've sent a telegram to a colleague of mine who studies tropical diseases in the hopes that he will be able to develop a cure for Holmes," the doctor explained to his wife. "In the meantime, I must monitor his condition from afar, for he will not allow me to be near him for fear of infecting me."  
"There must be something more you can do, John," Mary insisted.  
Watson sighed.  
"I wish there was, Mary, but-" he began to say when Mary interrupted him.  
"But nothing, John!" she exclaimed. "Never before have you allowed the threat of contagion to keep you from tending to the sick in the poorest parts of London, not even when Sherlock all but ordered you to stay away from those parts, John, so why are you so willing to allow him to send you away from his side, when it is clear that he needs your help?"  
The silence that greeted her demand confirmed what she had begun to suspect.  
"You haven't even been to see him since he's fallen ill, have you, John?" Mary challenged._  
_


	73. Fanatic

**Title: Into the Jaws of Madness**

**A/N: This ficlet (oddly enough) was inspired by bullying I was subjected to on Facebook a couple weeks ago. I've currently got two more ficlets already written up left before I catch up to where I am at with writing these things, and they are 680 and 1271 words long respectively, so I will most certainly NOT be posting updates on a daily basis for a while. Response to Prompt #22 Fanatic.**

Watson couldn't believe what he was hearing.  
"Holmes does care about me," he objected.  
"How can he truly care about you, Doctor Watson? He lied to you about contracting a deadly disease, he lied to you for three years about what really happened at Reinbach Falls, he made you think he was in London when he really was out on the moors of Dartmoor, just to name a small fraction of the times Sherlock Holmes has lied to you. That is not love, and to insist otherwise is to be delusional," the doctor's captor, Tyglin Primrose, insisted. "Now, I love you, Doctor, and my love is not false, nor is it delusional, like your flatmate's."  
"Holmes is not delusional!" Watson insisted. "He's just different."  
"Different in the sense that he is delusional, Doctor," corrected Tyglin as she checked Watson's restraints. "Surely you can see that, it's as plain as day to a sane person like myself. Ir has Mister Holmes' insanity infected you?"  
"Insanity is not contagious, Miss Primrose," growled Watson, wondering what it was that he had ever seen in this woman.  
"That's what they want you to think, Doctor, but if you encourage a sick man's delusions long enough, you'll begin to share in them."  
"You're the delusional one here, Miss Primrose," Watson snarled.  
Tyglin sighed.  
"It's too late for you, Doctor," she declared mournfully. "A pity, that is. You've gone and wasted your perfectly good mind on the likes of Sherlock Holmes."  
Normally, Watson wouldn't even wish to hit a woman, but he was beginning to make an exception in Tyglin's case, with her insistance that Holmes was insane.  
Watson was the only one allowed to call his flatmate insane, no one lese in the world was allowed to._  
_


	74. Memory

**Title: Vulcan Memories**

**A/N: Warnings, AU, Crossover, Slash. How many of you expect this? Response to Prompt #93 Memory.**

"This is a friendly place," Erica McCoy observed. "Where is everybody? Where's our welcoming party?"  
"Hush, Erica," ordered her uncle, Leonard McCoy.  
"I was just making an observation," Erica grumbled. "Isn't that what you do on scientific explorations?"  
"This is not a scientific exploration, Miss McCoy," Spock observed. "We are here solely to resupply the scientific expedition here."  
"Ah! Hello there!" called a voice from the shadowy entrance of the cave they'd been facing when they'd arrived on the planet. "Welcome to Kronos!"  
As the speaker came closer to the _Enterprise_ away team, Erica noted that the man had a limp and bristly mustache.  
"Doctor John Watson, I presume," McCoy remarked.  
"Leonard McCoy? Is that really you?" the man demanded.  
"Unfortunately, it is," Erica answered for her uncle, in a voice so devoid of emotion that she could have passed for a Vulcan if it weren't for the huge smile on her face.  
"And who is this lovely young woman?" Doctor Watson asked.  
"Erica McCoy," Erica informed him.  
"James' daughter, Watson," McCoy quickly added. "And this is-"  
"No need to, Leonard, I know who Mr. Spock is," Doctor Watson quickly interjected as his communicator chirped imperiously.  
Well, it seemed to sound imperious to Erica.  
"Watson here," the doctor said, answering his communicator.  
"What's taking you so long, Doctor Watson?" a curt voice demanded in reply.  
"We have visitors, Mrs. Hudson."  
"I do hope they have supplies with them, we are running low on everything, and you know how Sherlock gets," Mrs. Hudson remarked.  
"Yes, I do, Mrs. Hudson," the doctor agreed. "I'll be over there shortly with our guests."

* * *

Doctor Watson led the way back into the cave, explaining how they'd modified the caves to suit their needs.  
Only Spock appeared to find this of any interest, and the doctor soon changed the subject to something more interesting-Erica McCoy.  
"I'm sorry if I sound overly curious, but we don't get much in the way of news very often," the doctor explained.  
McCoy was more than happy to regale his old roommate with the gory details of James and Sierra McCoy's deaths.  
They soon arrived at the "Sitting Room", the central most cavern in the network of tunnels and caverns that the Kronos expedition team called home, where they would gather for meetings and celebrations, just as McCoy was about to recount how he had rescued Erica from the jungle planet of Pollux V that she had spent all her life on.  
"Please, take a seat," the doctor invited, indicating the chairs at the table in the center of the room.  
"_Dif-tor heh smusma_(1), Spock," called a voice.

"_Sochya eh dif, Sherlock_(2)," Spock respectfully replied.  
"Oh, great. Now there's two of them," McCoy grumbled, much to Doctor Watson's and Erica's amusement.  
"Vulcans still rub you the wrong way, Leonard?" Doctor Watson asked.  
"I think he's a bit jealous of their green blood," Erica offered.  
"As I recall, it was their superior healing abilities he was jealous of," Doctor Watson remarked.  
"Shut up, you two, you're embarrassing me," McCoy growled.

* * *

McCoy and his niece had already returned to the _Enterprise_, but Spock had lingered a little bit longer, as Sherlock had wanted to speak with him.  
"How do you stand him?" Sherlock demanded, getting straight to the point.  
"Stand who?" Spock asked.  
"That human doctor, Leonard McCoy I believe his name was."  
"I do not know how I stand him, Sherlock."  
"And what of the empath, his niece? I saw the way she was looking at John," Sherlock persisted.  
Spock raised a brow at the tinge of alien emotion in his fellow Vulcan's voice.  
"John is my _t'hy'la_(3), Spock."  
Accepting Sherlock's statement, Spock answered the other Vulcan's implied question.  
"Erica McCoy lacks the control to heal Doctor Watson's injury."  
Sherlock was heartbroken-or at least, as heartbroken as a Vulcan could possibly be-at Spock's words. He hated seeing his _t'hy'la_'s limp, because it was a reminder of the extreme sacrifice the man had made for him out of (human) love, before they had even really gotten to know each other.

* * *

**_Translations_**

1. 'Live long and prosper'. A traditional Vulcan greeting/farewell.

2. 'Peace and long life'. A greeting or reply to the 'Live long and prosper' greeting/farewell.

3. 'Friend/Life Friend'. Friend/lover/lifelong companion, blood brother/sister, soulmate, soul-brother/sister.


	75. Complete

To the person who decided to report my story NOW, your reasons for reporting my story are invalid and petty. If I didn't put any warnings at all, then yes, you would have a say. HOWEVER, at the very beginning of this collection, I mentioned that warnings are on a per-chapter basis. Most of these ficlets are clearly NOT slash, anyways. However, some of these ficlets CAN BE viewed as slash by others, which is why some of my ficlets have "Slash" listed as a warning. I personally do NOT write slash UNLESS it is CANON (however, my stories CAN be viewed as slash at times, which is when I warn for slash). If you don't like slash, that's fine by me. But if you're going to say that you weren't warned about something, WHEN THE WARNINGS ARE ON THE SECOND LINE, before the fic itself, well, that's just wrong of you to claim that I was in the wrong. Reporting a fic because you failed to read the author's notes is an abuse of the reporting feature, in my honest opinion.

* * *

**Title: Ageless and Timeless**

**A/N: Warnings, AU, Crossover, deaging, time travel. Mostly because I have yet to see a deaging time travel fic before in any fandom (Doctor Who doesn't count). Also, this ficlet is entirely INSANE. Response to Prompt #37 Complete.**

_"All hands, this is the Captain speaking."_  
Erica didn't even look up from the medical report she was writing (being the only person aboard the _Enterprise_ able to access her uncle's mind had its benefits, but this was not one of them).  
But four-year-old Leonard McCoy (he'd been turned into a child as a result of some obscure incident during an away mission last week, and the effects were expected to last for another three weeks) looked up from the coloring book someone had given him (Erica suspected a joint effort between the Captain, the Chief Engineer, and the First Officer).  
"Something's wrong, Erica," the child declared just moments before the Captain resumed speaking.  
_"The_ Enterprise _is now in orbit around Earth,"_ he informed his crew. _"Unfortunately, the ripple in the fabric of the space-time continuum that brought us home also sent us backwards in time."_  
"Of course it did," Erica muttered, stifling a slight cough.  
"Did ya know that was gonna happen, Erica?" Leonard asked his niece, the Captain's announcement fading into the background.  
Erica shook her head.  
"No, Leonard," she replied, a quick flash of glee rising within herself as she said her uncle's name without stumbling over the unfamiliar syllables, "I did not know that was going to happen, but it does not surprise me that it did happen."  
"Because this is the _Enterprise_?" Leonard asked, remembering his niece's initial reaction to finding out that her uncle had been turned into a toddler.  
Erica couldn't help but smile as she agreed with her uncle.  
Further discussion on the matter was curtailed by the Captain as he ordered all senior officers to the conference room.  
Erica wasn't sure whether the command included her (as she was not a senior officer, she was only temporarily taking over some of the tasks her uncle was responsible for as _Enterprise_'s Chief Medical Officer), so she decided to err on the side of caution and headed up to the conference room, with Leonard in tow.  
"Captain, I wasn't sure-" Erica began to explain, but Kirk interrupted her.  
"It's alright, Erica," he informed her. "In fact, I am quite glad you've come."  
"What about Leonard? Should I have Nurse Chapel come up from Sickbay to collect him?" Erica asked.  
Kirk glanced over at his CMO, who was currently seated in his usual place at the conference table.  
"Bones can stay, Erica," the Captain decided.  


* * *

Scotty was the last to answer the Captain's summons to the conference room. Once the engineer had taken his place at the table, Kirk began to speak.  
"As you are already aware, the _Enterprise_ has been thrown back in time," he said. "However, you may not be aware of exactly how far back in time we've gone."  
"How far back, Captain?" asked Lieutenant Uhura.  
"Sometime in the late 1800s, Lieutenant," Kirk replied.  
"May 26, 1886, to be precise," Spock added.  
"Well, at least we don't have to worry about radar," Erica observed.  
"That's one less thing we need to worry about then," Kirk observed. "Scotty, what's the status of the engines?"  
"Well, sir, th' warp engines took quite a beatin' durin' tha' explosion," the Scotsman began. "But it shouldna take any longer than a week to get 'em up an' runnin' again. And we shouldna have any problems maintaining our current orbit, as th' impulse engines are in perfect workin' order fer once."  
"Excellent, Scotty," Kirk declared, before turning back to Erica. "Erica, how familiar are you with the technology of this time period?"  
"I should say that I am quite familiar with the technology _and_ the people of this time period, Captain," Erica replied, stifling another cough as she spoke.  


* * *

"Of all the times for a circuit board to malfunction on the _Enterprise_," muttered Kirk as he rifled through a bin full of clothes in search of anything that Spock could modify into something Scotty could use to replace the fried circuit board that had triggered a small fire in Sickbay, landing Bones in a biobed with third degree burns over most of his body.  
"Do you think you could use a pocket watch like this one, Mister Spock?" Erica asked, her voice breaking into the Captain's thoughts.  
She had insisted on coming with the Captain and his first officer, and Kirk had allowed it, knowing that she would benefit greatly from the distraction the away mission would provide her with.  
Not to mention M'Benga and the nurses would be better able to do their jobs with Erica not hovering over her uncle, denying that she was sick.  
Kirk, finding nothing of use in the bin of clothes, turned to face the other two, even as a realization dawned in his mind.  
"How are we going to pay for this stuff?" the Captain asked, indicating the Gladstone bag filled with the odds and ends they had already found in the bins and on the shelves of the Victorian London pawn shop as Spock added the pocket watch Erica had found to the collection.  
"I believe Miss McCoy has already taken care of that particular issue, Captain," Spock informed him as a bloodhound began baying out on the street in front of the pawn shop.  
All three looked up as two men and the still-baying bloodhound entered the pawn shop.  
"The dog stays outside, if you please, gentlemen," ordered the owner of the pawn shop. "I do not need a repeat of the last time you brought that bloody mutt in her, Mister Holmes."  
Erica suddenly launched into a violent coughing fit at the name. Unfortunately, her violent coughing fit attracted the attention of Mister Holmes' companion.  
"Are you alright, miss?" he asked.  
"Nothing that getting out of this place won't fix, Doc-sir," Erica replied, almost slipping up and calling the man by his proper title-something she wouldn't know if she were from this time period.  
But her near-slip did not go unnoticed by Doctor Watson.  
He gave her a look that reminded Erica quite strongly of her uncle.  
"Are you sure of that, miss?" the doctor asked. "Begging your pardon, of course, but that was not a healthy sounding cough in the slightest."  
Spock and the Captain had just finished purchasing the items they had just collected in the Gladstone bag at this point, and they were quite impatient to return to the _Enterprise_.  
Well, Kirk was, anyways, though Erica strongly suspected that the Vulcan shared his Captain's eagerness to return to the_Enterprise_.  
"Well, we've gotten everything we needed to get, Miss McCoy, it's time we headed home," Kirk informed her. "And when we get home, you _are_ going to let Doctor M'Benga take another look at your lungs."  
Erica groaned but did not object to the Captain's hidden command. She may not have been a member of Starfleet, but she was still a member of his crew, and therefore, she could not disobey him.  
After the three strangers had left the pawn shop, Doctor Watson remarked to his friend, "Doctor M'Benga? Must be an African, though why he would be practicing here in London is beyond me."  
"I'd say this Doctor M'Benga is a private doctor, working solely for the McCoy family, though Miss McCoy and those two men with her hardly seemed to be the sort of folk who could afford a personal doctor, much less would have one," Holmes observed in reply.  
Watson agreed whole-heartedly with this observation, though he did not get the chance to verbalize his opinion, as Toby suddenly began to bay, having picked back up the scent of the man he was pursuing.


	76. Bored

**Title: Watson's Woe**

**A/N: Warnings, 2009 movieverse. Blame Robert Downey Junior for this one (I know I do). Response to Prompt #45 Bored.**

Watson dreaded the hottest days of summer and the coldest days of winter with equal fervor.  
As he tripped over the reason for his dread on his way to his room, the doctor wondered why he was so loyal to Sherlock Holmes, so willing to lay down his life for the man.  
"Oh, sorry, Watson, I didn't think you'd be coming this way," the detective remarked.  
"Why aren't you in the sitting room imitating a statue, Holmes?" Watson demanded.  
"I didn't do it," Holmes immediately replied defensively.  
Watson began to get a bad feeling about the current state of the sitting room at this.  
"What did you do now, Holmes?"  
"_I_ didn't do anything," the detective insisted.  
Watson sighed in annoyed frustration.  
"Holmes," he said warningly.  
"Gladstone has a problem with his diet."  
"He has a problem with crumpets," the doctor corrected. "Did you give him crumpets again, Holmes?"  
"Maybe," Holmes reluctantly admitted.  
Watson made a mental note to discuss with Inspector Lestrade the possibility of making up a case to distract Holmes from experimenting with his dog and Mrs. Hudson's crumpets (as well as anything else Holmes might get the idea to experiment on or with) as soon as he could possibly manage without attracting Holmes' attention.


	77. Tour

**Title: Reunions**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (childhood). Response to Prompt #30 Tour.**

Sherlock briefly wondered where his step-brother John was right at that moment, as he set up everything he needed for his experiment.  
Of course, that was presuming his step-brother had been one of the few to survive the disastrous battle at Maiwand. Sherlock didn't even know that, though it was quite likely that Mycroft knew. But Sherlock hadn't even cared enough to ask him about the current whereabouts of John Watson.  
Sherlock pushed away all thoughts of the doctor as he began his experiment.

* * *

John followed Stamford into the lab, which was inhabited by a single person, a thin, wiry man bent over a row of test tubes. John was struck by how familiar the man appeared to be, how much the man reminded him of his step-brother, Sherlock Holmes. And that was when John realized that Stamford hadn't told him the name of the man who had also remarked to him that he was looking for a roommate to go halves with him on rooms available for rent on Baker Street.  
Any further thoughts John may have had on the matter were sent flying as the man turned to face the newcomers to gleefully inform them of his experiment's success.  
"Sherlock!" exclaimed John in surprise, even as Sherlock cried his name in twin surprise.  
Stamford just looked on at the two men, a huge smirk on his face the only indication that he had known the two had known each other before he'd brought them back together.


	78. Creep

**Title: Too Late for the Doctor**

**A/N: Sorry it took me so long to post the next ficlet, I wanted to make sure I had a bit of a backlog again. Part one of two. Response to Prompt #36 Creep.**

Dressed as he was, all in black, and hiding behind the shrubbery, Watson wondered why he had yet to be stopped by the constable who walked this beat, one of the few to earn Holmes' praise for his powers of observation.  
So why was Constable Wayne walking past his hiding place without any indication that he had noticed the doctor?  
Surely Holmes had not told him about what they were up to, _especially_ since they didn't know who at Scotland Yard was in the pay of Mosley!  
And what was taking Holmes so long anyways?  
The sound of gunfire from the house behind him sent an icy chill through the doctor's heart.  
Ignoring the detective's earlier admonition to not enter the house after him, no matter what happened, Watson raced into the house, unaware of Constable Wayne's presence behind him in his fear.  
Watson found his friend in the attic, bound hand and foot to a chair, Luke Mosley's revolver aimed at the detective's heart.  
"Ah, there you are, Doctor Watson," Mosley remarked. "As you can see, your friend is alive and well, at least for the time being."  
"Watson, get out of here!" Holmes desperately ordered his friend, but it was too late for the doctor, as Constable Wayne stepped out of the shadows behind Watson and knocked him out with a single blow from his police-issued club.  
"Is he alive, Thomas?" Mosley demanded.  
The constable checked the doctor's still form for a pulse.  
"He's alive, sir," the constable replied.  
"Well, what are you waiting for, Thomas? Tie the good doctor up before he comes to," Mosley commanded.


	79. Hallucinate

**Title: Too Late for the Detective**

**A/N: This ficlet has no proper ending. Part two of two. Response to Prompt #89 Hallucinate.**

Mosley's parting words still rang in the detective's ears three hours after he'd uttered them: _"You'd better hope your friend doesn't wake up, he might just survive what is coming."_  
Holmes hated not knowing what was going on, and this time was no different. Questions buzzed in his mind, questions he could not answer. What cruel fate did Mosley have in store for them? Holmes' only clue was the thief's parting comment.  
But what worried him most of all was the fact that Watson was still unconscious.  
He was sure that Wayne had not struck the doctor hard enough to cause any serious permanent damage, and yet Watson was still unconscious.  
_Hiss..._  
Holmes had his answer. Mosley was filling the room up with some sort of poisonous gas. And because Watson was unconscious, his breathing was slower than normal, and so he was being poisoned at a slower rate than Holmes.  


* * *

Thomas Wayne both hated and loved his job. He loved bringing order to chaos, he loved catching the bad guys and bringing them to justice. He didn't like it when his bosses decided that they needed him to play at betraying Scotland Yard, like they had done so in the hopes of eventually cornering Luke Mosley. It did make him feel a bit better about the situation that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were the ones who got Mosley cornered without any help from Scotland Yard. He just needed to make sure that the two survived cornering the man.  
Inspector Lestrade, who had been at the ready for the past week and a half for his signal, arrived at Mosley's house five minutes after Wayne had arrested the thief.  
As soon as the inspector took custody of Mosley from the constable, Wayne raced downstairs to the basement, praying desperately that it wasn't too late for the detective.


	80. Parch

**Title: Deserted Paradise**

**A/N: Warnings, AU, supernatural. Dedicated to KCS, for inspiring me to challenge myself when it comes to my stories. Response to Prompt #64 Parch.**

What Sherlock Holmes hated most about Egypt was not the sand that surrounded him for miles, nor did he hate the blazing desert sun that burned his skin without mercy.  
What the detective hated most about Egypt wasn't even the fact that he was alone, having left his dearest friend behind in England to grieve over his supposed demise (though it was a given that as long as Holmes was forced to wander the earth, he would hate anywhere he was, simply because Watson wasn't with him).  
What Holmes hated the most about Egypt was the lack of precipitation. He vowed to never again complain about London's dreary weather (presuming he ever returned home).  
He also regretted leaving Cairo for this mysterious wadi the Bedouin trader had told him about without taking the Arab twins, Alim and Baqi Nejem, who had no one else to care for them besides himself. They also knew the desert like it was the backs of their hands.  
The detective could only hope that they would somehow manage to find him before he died of dehydration.  


* * *

"Why couldn't he just stay in England?" grumbled Alim.  
"So that he would remain Gwyn and Ceri's problem, Brother?" asked Baqi.  
Alim nodded.  
Baqi chuckled as he replied, "I agree wholeheartedly, Brother."  
"I will tell Gwyn all about the trouble this detective has caused us during his stay here at the next Gathering, Brother," Alim vowed as the sky began to lighten with the precursors of sunrise.  


* * *

As the sun cleared the eastern horizon behind him, Holmes reached the crest of the largest sand dune he had ever seen (though he was sure that there were larger dunes further out, in the very heart of the desert).  
Below him, starting at the foot of the very sand dune he had just climbed and stretching out for as far as he could see, was the impossible place he had heard tell of, an oasis outside the flow of time, where the ancient magic yet still thrived.  
_Why have you come here, Stranger?_  
The detective looked about him, but he didn't see anyone.  
"Where are you?" Holmes demanded.  
_Right here,_ replied the voice, as a young girl materialized beside the detective.  
"Who are you?" Holmes asked, quickly hiding his unease at being confronted by something clearly supernatural (at least, based on the facts as he knew them to be), but not before the girl noticed his unease.  
_I am Katharine Celeste Smith, and you are Sherlock Holmes,_ the girl informed the detective.  
Holmes was surprised that she knew his name.  
"How do you know who I am?" he demanded.  
_That would be telling, Mister Holmes,_ Katharine replied with a grin.  
"Oh...Hello, Katharine," a voice said in dismayed surprise from behind the detective.  
Holmes turned to face Alim and Baqi.  
"You know her?" he demanded.  
"Yes, sir, we know Katharine," Alim affirmed.  
_Baqi and Alim are my brothers in spirit, Mister Holmes,_ Katharine informed the detective.  
"What are you going to do with me, Miss Smith?" Holmes asked.  
_Do with you?_ echo'd Katharine, her voice (Holmes didn't know what else to call the strange girl's method of communication). _The world believes you to be dead, at least, for the most part. It would be all too easy for me to keep you here to stay for all eternity. Perhaps I would even be so kind as to bring your dearest friend here, to stay by your side for all time. But the time has not yet come for either one of you to join me for eternity, Sherlock Holmes._  
"Katharine," Alim said warningly, though Holmes wasn't quite sure why.  
_Alim, he must know the truth, or Moriarty will yet still triumph!_ Katharine snapped in reply.  
"The truth?" Holmes asked, wondering if he was hallucinating this entire encounter.


	81. Morose

**Title: Family Ties**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (unexpected), female!Watson, married!Holmes. This is part one of four. Response to Prompt #57 Morose.**

Watson frowned at the words written on the scrap of paper, her sole clue as to the whereabouts of her husband.  
"Mama, where's Papa?" asked a young voice, interrupting the lady doctor's thoughts.  
Watson sighed as she turned to face her six-year-old daughter, Merrilyn.  
"I don't know, Merry," she admitted sadly.  
"Is that a bad thing, Mama?" Merrilyn asked.  
"It's not always a bad thing, Merry," Watson replied. "But this is one of the times when it is a bad thing."  
"Can we help you find Papa?" Ianto, Merrilyn's twin brother, asked.  
Watson gave her children a wane smile as she answered her son's question.  
"As long as you do exactly as I tell you to do," she firmly replied. "This isn't anything like the games you play with the Irregulars, this is the real thing. Do you two promise to behave yourselves?"  
"Yes, Mama," Merrilyn and Ianto said in unison.  
"Okay, then," Watson said, satisfied that the twins would do as they were told if it meant getting their father back safe and sound. "Here is the sole clue I have concerning your father's whereabouts."  
Watson held up the scrap of paper as she spoke.  
"What does it say, Mama?" Ianto eagerly asked.  
"To find he who has been lost to you,  
You must follow the trail left for you.  
This trail of breadcrumbs is but child's play for a lady doctor to find.  
In fact, you hold the first clue in your hands now," Watson read aloud.  
"That's a terrible ransom note, Mama," Merrilyn observed.  
"That's 'cause it's not a ransom note, Merry," Ianto quickly corrected her. "It's a message to Mama, telling her how to find Papa."  
Watson nodded.  
"Ianto's right," she said. "The note comes from one of Papa's informants."  
"Mama, what's an informant?" Ianto asked.  
"An informant is someone who provides information, usually for a fee," Watson explained.  
"Is Inspector Lestrade an informant, Mama?" Merrilyn asked.  
Watson smiled at Merrilyn's question.  
"No, he is not an informant, Merry," she replied.  
"Mama, what does "Whitehall" mean?" Ianto asked.  
Watson frowned.  
"Where do you see it, Ianto?" she asked.  
"On the back of the note, Mama," Ianto replied, pointing to the spot where he could see faint lines spelling out the word "Whitehall".  
"Is that the first clue?" Merrilyn eagerly asked.  
"I believe it is," Watson replied.  
"What does it mean, Mama?" Ianto said again.  
"It means we are going to be paying Uncle Mycroft a visit today," Watson declared.  
"Can we come too, Mama?" Ianto asked.  
Merrilyn elbowed her brother in the side.  
"Of course we're coming, Ianto," she rebuked him. "Weren't you listening? Mama said "we"."


	82. Piss

**Title: Annoyances**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (unexpected), female!Watson, married!Holmes. This is part two of four. Response to Prompt #69 Piss.**

Mycroft eyed his niece and nephew as though he expected them to jump from their seats and throw his neatly ordered office into disarray at any moment as he asked his sister-in-law why she had come to see him.  
"Sherlock is missing, and I was directed to come here, to Whitehall in my quest to find him," Watson explained.  
"Directed?" Mycroft asked.  
Watson handed him the note that had led her to Whitehall.  
Mycroft inspected the note closely, but wasn't able to learn anything more from it than Watson herself.  
While the two adults were focused on the note, Merrilyn and Ianto carefully went through their uncle's post, which he had not yet had the chance to open himself, distracted as he had been by their arrival.  
"Look, Ianto, doesn't that look like the same handwriting on the note?" Merrilyn asked, holding up a slip of paper for her brother to see.  
"Yeah, it does, Merry," Ianto agreed.  
"Let's show it to Mama and Uncle Mycroft," Merrilyn decided.  
"Mama! Mama, look at what we found!" Ianto called out, Merrilyn waving the note in the air as he spoke.  
"Bring it here, Merry," Watson calmly directed her daughter.  
Merrilyn immediately did as she was told, and Watson read aloud the message the slip of paper contained.  
"So your sharp eyes have led you to Whitehall,  
Where brother-in-law reigns over all but in name.  
This next clue I will not make you work as hard for,  
At least not with your eyes.  
From Whitehall to Whitechapel,  
Sherlock Holmes knows every route between them,  
But do you know the right route to take?  
Here's a hint, if you need it:  
The doctor knows it well," she read.  
"Some hint," grumbled Mycroft dismissively.  
"No, I know exactly which route they're talking about, Mycroft," Watson quickly replied.  
"You do, Mama?" Ianto and Merrilyn asked eagerly.  
Watson nodded.  
"Well then, what are we waiting for?" demanded Merrilyn. "Let's go!"


	83. Trapped

**Title: Ransom Him**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (unexpected), female!Watson, married!Holmes. This is part three of four. Response to Prompt #80 Trapped.**

Mycroft had an important meeting with someone or other (he didn't say who it was) that he could not miss or reschedule, so Watson and the twins quickly said good bye to him before leaving Whitehall for the streets of Whitechapel.  
Watson, Ianto and Merrilyn close on their mother's heels, traced the route her former roommate, Mary Morstan had taken on that fateful day so many years ago, bearing a message of hope for the lady doctor who had shared rooms with her for several years before she had married Sherlock Holmes.  
"What are we looking for, Mama?" Ianto asked.  
"I'll know when I see it," Watson replied.  
"Mama, I just saw Papa!" exclaimed Merrilyn all of a sudden, pointing out a tall, thin man dressed all in solemn black, sharply contrasted by his blonde hair, pale skin, and the stark white of his Roman collar.  
Watson opened her mouth to correct her daughter's mistake, but the priest's reaction to the young girl's cry stopped her.  
His eyes flashed briefly with recognition. Recognition mingled with fear.  
"Mama!" cried Ianto as a trio of thick-muscled men converged on the disguised detective.  
"I know, Ianto," murmured Watson, torn between keeping Ianto and Merrilyn safely out of harm's way and coming to her husband's aid.  
"Doctor Watson, Oi can make sure tha' Ianto an' Merry make it 'ome safely ta Baker Street," a young voice offered from the shadows nearby.  
"Thank you, Martin," Watson said to the Irregular. To her children, the doctor said, "Ianto, Merry, go with Martin. He'll take you home."  
"What about Papa?" Merrilyn asked, but Watson had already rushed off to her husband's side.  
"Don't yew worry 'bout Mister 'Olmes, Merry," Martin insisted. "'Im an' yer mum are great fighters, Oi've seen 'em fight loads o' times afore."  
"You have?" Ianto asked, eager to hear more about his parents' adventures.  
Martin nodded.  
"Oi'll tell yew all 'bout it on our way ta Baker Street," he promised.  


* * *

In the damp darkness of the cellar that served as their prison cell, Holmes tested the ropes that bound him hand and foot.  
He was not at all pleased to discover that whomever had tied the knots had known what he was doing.  
"Watson?" he called into the gloom.  
"I'm here, Holmes," the doctor replied.  
"Are you alright?" the detective asked.  
"Just a few bumps and bruises, Holmes," she replied. "Though I do wish that whomever tied me up hadn't tied the knots so tightly, having my hands behind my back like this aggravates my war wound."  
"I would like to give him a piece of my mind about these knots too," Holmes remarked. "What about Ianto and Merry? Are they alright?"  
"Martin's taking them home," Watson replied.  
"Martin?"  
"One of the Irregulars, Wiggins' cousin," Watson replied.  
"Oh, _that_ Martin."  
"Who did you think I was talking about?"  
"One of the male prostitutes you're friendly with," Holmes sheepishly admitted.  
"His name isn't Martin, the man you're thinking of," Watson remarked.  
"Oh? What is his name then?"  
"Jude," replied Watson, her eyeroll hidden from view by the darkness of the cellar.  
"Ah, yes, him," Holmes affirmed.  
"Holmes, what are you not telling me?" Watson asked, hearing something off in her husband's voice.  
Holmes swore under his breath, clearly he had hoped that Watson wouldn't see right thru him like usual, before he answered the doctor's question.  
"Our captors have no intention of letting either one of us leave this cellar alive, Watson," he informed her. "In fact, I can hear them on the stairs now."


	84. Smuggle

**Title: On the Other Side**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (unexpected), female!Watson, married!Holmes. This is part four of four. Response to Prompt #46 Smuggle.**

Ianto, Merrilyn, and Martin helplessly watched as the twins' parents were overpowered by the thugs and taken captive. With the Irregular's help, Ianto and Merrilyn tailed their parents' captors all the way to their hideout.  
"What now?" Merrilyn asked. "We can not wait for the cover of darkness to rescue Mama and Papa."  
"Merry's right," Ianto agreed. "We don't know when they're going to kill Mama and Papa, we could already be too late."  
"Lucky fer us all, Oi used ta live in th' flat 'bove tha' store," Martin remarked, indicating the building that housed the gang and the twins' parents as he spoke.  
"Is there a secret passage, Martin?" Merrilyn eagerly asked.  
The irregular nodded.  
"The gang might know about the passage," Ianto objected.  
"Oi doubt it," Martin insisted. "Oi never told anyone 'bout this passage."  
"Ianto, what else can we do?" Merrilyn added.  


* * *

"Well?" Merrilyn demanded impatiently. "Is there anyone on the other side of the trapdoor?"  
"Yeah," Martin replied. "Yer parents."  
"Are they alone?" Ianto asked.  
"Fer th' moment," the irregular declared.  
"Well, then let's rescue them already," Merrilyn insisted.  
Martin felt for the latch he knew was on the door. He quickly found it, but it wouldn't budge.  
It had rusted shut in the time since he had last been in the secret passage.  
"What's wrong?" Ianto asked.  
"Oi can't get it open," Martin growled as he tried to force open the latch.  
"Let me try," Ianto directed, and Martin moved over to allow him access to the latch.  
Ianto threw all of his weight into forcing the latch, but it did not budge in the slightest.  
"May I try?" Merrilyn asked suddenly, breaking the silence that had fallen over them.  
"Merry, it's pretty badly rusted, I don't think you'll have any more luck with it than we've had," Ianto observed.  
"Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I'm a weakling, Ianto," Merrilyn reminded her brother.  
With a sigh (from Ianto), the two boys moved aside, giving Merrilyn access to the troublesome latch.  
Three minutes later, Merrilyn had the trapdoor open.  
"After you," she quietly remarked.  
"Ladies first, Merry," Ianto muttered back.  
Further debate was cut off by a hesitant voice calling out, "Who's there?"  
"Papa!" exclaimed Ianto.  
"Ianto? Is that really you?" a second voice asked.  
"Yes, it's really me, Mama," Ianto replied.  
"Is Merry with you, Ianto?" Holmes asked.  
"He wouldn't be here without my help, Papa," Merrilyn observed, drawing close to her father.  
"I thought Martin took you two home," Watson remarked.  
"We couldn't abandon yew, Doctor," Martin admitted.  
"We came to rescue you, Mama," Ianto added.  
"Aw, how sweet, a family reunion," a new voice drawled from above their heads. Someone flipped a switch, and the cellar's gaslights hissed into life.  
"I should have known you were behind this, Arthur Mallory," Watson growled.  
"Now that I have your children, Doctor, I am unstoppable," Arthur Mallory declared.  
"What of Scotland Yard?" Ianto asked.  
"Scotland Yard will be too busy chasing ghosts to realise what I am up to until it is much too late," the mad man replied.  
"How can you be so sure they will chase your ghosts, Mallory?" Watson asked.  
"Why don't you ask your husband, Doctor? I'm sure he knows _exactly_ what I am talking about," Mallory replied. "Don't you, Mister Holmes...Where did he go!"  
"Your ghosts are bedsheets compared to my Papa, Mister Mallory," Merrilyn boldly declared from her perch on the chair her father had but moments earlier been tied to. She held a small knife in her right hand.  
"Where is your father, Merrilyn?" snarled Mallory, taking a step forward, towards Merrilyn, as he spoke.  
"Right here, Mallory," Holmes answered, as he tackled the mad man.


	85. Challenge

_Yay! I'm back to posting my _HUGE_ backlog of ficlets! I'm currently writing #97, which means after I finish writing that one, I've only got three more ficlets to write for this challenge.~KR_

**Title: Blood and Water**

**A/N: Warnings, AU (ehc). This is a sneak peak at a future installment of the 'Elizabeth Holmes Cases' series. Response to Prompt #38 Challenge.**

"Elizabeth," Watson read aloud, "is alive. For now, at any rate. Her fate rests in your hands, Sherlock Holmes. Interfere with my plans and she will die. If you are deluded enough to think that I might spare her simply because she is my cousin, think again. She revoked any right she might have had to being my cousin the day she became your daughter."  
"Is that all it says, Watson?" the detective asked.  
Watson grimly nodded.  
"Holmes, are you going to do as he demands?" the doctor asked.  
Holmes sighed.  
"Holmes?"  
"Watson, I don't know what to do," the detective admitted, his voice barely audible. "I don't want Elizabeth to die, but at the same time, I can't allow Angel to rebuild his father's criminal network."  
"You'll think of something, Holmes, you always do," Watson said confidently.  
"I wish I could be as sure as you are, Watson," Holmes admitted.  
Both men looked up at the sound of light footsteps on the stairs to the sitting room.  
"Who could that be?" Watson wondered aloud.  
His answer wasn't long in coming, as Alexander Campbell stepped into the sitting room.  
"Sorry fer not knockin', Mister 'Olmes, Doctor Watson," the thirteen-year-old said. "But it's urgent."  
"What is it, Campbell?" the detective demanded, forcing the young boy to get right to the point.  
"Oi was told ta deliver this ta yew, Mister 'Olmes," the irregular replied, holding out an envelope.  
The detective took the proffered envelope and studied it with his magnifying glass, in search of any clues as to the identity of the sender.  
Unfortunately, there wasn't anything to be found. The lack of evidence, however, did not provide Holmes with any information either.  
"Most intriguing," Holmes observed as he handed the envelope to Watson.  
"What is?" the doctor asked as he opened the envelope. But before Holmes could reply, Watson exclaimed, "Holmes! This letter, it's from Elizabeth!"  
"What? How?"  
The doctor held out the letter for the detective, but Holmes shook his head.  
"Read what it says, Watson," he insisted.  
"Dearest Sherlock," the doctor read aloud. "I fear this letter will reach you after Angel's, but I do hope that Campbell gets to Baker Street before you do anything foolish."  
"I wasn't going to do anything foolish," groused Homes, but Watson ignored him as he continued reading Elizabeth's letter.  
"I'm currently being held captive by Angel in one of his boltholes. Unfortunately, I don't know which one, but Campbell knows. He also knows the part he must play in my rescue. As for you and the good doctor, you must stop Angel. Don't worry about me, Campbell will make sure our plans are compatible."  
Holmes turned to the irregular.  
"Is this all true, Campbell?" he demanded.  
"It sure is, Mister 'Olmes," Campbell affirmed. "E'ery single word o' it."


	86. Starve

**Title: Eat Me, Now**

**A/N: Warnings, mentions of drug abuse. Response to Prompt #47 Starve.**

Watson sighed as he resigned himself to dining alone once again. The following morning, when Holmes once again failed to come down to eat, however, was a different matter entirely.  
The doctor barged into the detective's room, pausing only long enough to open the door in a civilized manner, and demanded that his flatmate quit sulking and come out of his room, if only just to have something to break his fast.  
"I am not hungry, Doctor," the detective objected.  
"Nonsense, Holmes," countered Watson. "You haven't had a decent meal in a week."  
"I last ate five days ago," corrected Holmes.  
"Doesn't matter, Holmes," Watson insisted. "You still need to eat _something_. I won't have you starving yourself to death for a lack of work and an overabundance of cocaine."  
"What I do in my rooms is of no concern of yours, Watson," Holmes snarled. "Now, get out!"  
But Watson did not leave the detective's room. He was a doctor, not a coward, after all.  
"I am a doctor, Holmes," Watson reminded his flatmate. "You are my patient. What you do in your rooms _is_ my concern. Now, you will leave this room and eat your fair share of the lovely breakfast Mrs. Hudson has provided for us."  
Holmes opened his mouth to object, but the look Watson gave him silenced his objection before it could leave his mouth.


	87. Spike

**Title: The Raven's Call**

**A/N: Warnings, historical humor, mentions of alcohol abuse. Response to Prompt #50 Spike.**

Watson prayed fervently that the ropes that held him suspended above the metal spikes that rose up from the floor below held.  
Feeling fear and panic beginning to overwhelm his senses, Watson tried to distract himself by trying to recall how he had ended up in his current predicament.  


* * *

_Four hours earlier..._  
Watson stormed out of 221 Baker Street, frustrated with his new flatmate's behavior.  
The doctor soon found himself in an unfamiliar part of London, outside a seedy-looking tavern that looked like it had been around since the reign of King Charles I. A sign above the door read "The King's Head".  
Watson went inside, telling himself he would only have one drink before finding his way back to Baker Street.  
But the sweet siren song of alcohol clouded his judgement. His descent into drunken oblivion was aided by a friendly day-laborer by the name of 'Dionysus'.  
"My folks were inta th' ole Greek classics, they were," he explained. "Most folks call me 'Dion', though."  
"That rhymes with 'Lion'," Watson drunkenly observed.  
"Wot does?" Dion asked.  
"'Dion'," the doctor clarified.  
"Why, Oi do suppose tha' yew are right, Doctor Watson," he agreed.  
In his drunken state, the day-laborer's knowledge of who Watson was went by unremarked until it was too late.  


* * *

_Present_  
No matter how hard he tried to remember anything more, Watson only managed to make his headache worse, so he gave up on the attempt.  
Perhaps he could find something in his present surroundings?


	88. Mobile

**Title: The Price We Pay**

**A/N: Warnings, alternative universe (ehc). Response to Prompt #65 Mobile.**

"Yew shouldn't be standin' on those bad legs, Mister 'Olmes," Evin said in lieu of a proper greeting as the young boy entered the sitting room to find the detective standing on his still healing legs at his chemistry set.  
Holmes only grunted in reply.  
"Yew do realize tha' th' Doctor will tie yew ta th' bed if 'e catches yew standin' up loik yew are right now," Evin reminded the detective.  
This time, Holmes didn't even acknowledge the irregular with a grunt.  
"Anyways, th' Doctor sent me ta check up on yew, Oi suppose Oi need ta report back ta 'im now, an' let 'im know tha' yew are standin' at yer chemistry table, doin' experiments against doctor's orders," Evin declared loudly as he made for the sitting room door.  
Holmes growled something under his breath as he slowly limped over to his armchair in front of the fireplace. Evin had a feeling the detective's landlady would wash his mouth out with soap if he repeated what Holmes had just muttered in her presence.  
"Tell the good doctor that I'm behaving, Evin," Holmes ordered.  
"No need, Evin," the doctor remarked as he entered the sitting room.  
Turning to Holmes, Watson added, "Holmes, why couldn't you for once _listen_ to me?"  
The detective hung his head, reluctantly feeling shame for being the focus of Watson's displeasure.  
"O' course not, Doctor," Evin observed, unexpectedly jumping to his employer's aid. "'E's Sherlock 'Olmes, an' if 'e were ta do wot yew ask o' 'im, yew'd be worried 'bout 'im, don't deny it."  
Watson chuckled.  
"Yes, you are right, Evin," the doctor agreed. "But that doesn't stop me from hoping that he do as I asked for once."  
"Mayhaps 'e'll do as yew ask 'im, Doctor, when 'e's older," Evin suggested.  
"I'm right here," Holmes growled. "Don't I have a say in the matter?"  
"No," Watson and Evin said in unison.


	89. Travel

**Title: Disaster Looms**

**A/N: Warnings, alternative universe (ehc), crossover (star trek). Response to Prompt #74 Travel. This is Part One of Two (part two is over 1k words in length, I'll be posting it tomorrow at some point or other). These two ficlets are a teaser for an upcoming multi-chaptered fanfic I guarantee you will cause a migraine to keep the plot lines straight.**

"Where are we?" Erica asked, looking around her at the dingy streets of Victorian London, as strange to her as any alien world the _Enterprise_ had explored. "Are we even on Earth?"  
"We are in fact on Earth, Miss McCoy," Spock crisply replied. "We have been sent into Earth's past, in order to rescue your uncle and the Captain."  
"I didn't realize we were going to the Dark Ages," grumbled Erica as a young boy bumped into her.  
"This is not the dark ages, Miss McCoy," the half-Vulcan corrected her. "This is the Victorian Era in your species' history."  
"Aren't you half-human, Mr. Spock?" Erica demanded abruptly.  
"Yes, but I do not see what that has to do with our present discussion, Miss McCoy."  
"Of course you wouldn't," Erica groaned. "What I mean is that it's your history too, not just mine."  


* * *

Evin waited until he was out of sight of the strange young woman and her equally strange escort before looking at what he had picked from the woman's coat pocket.  
"Wot yew got there, Evin?" a voice whispered in the boy's ear, interrupting Evin's bewildered train of thought.  
"Oi don't know, Campbell," Evin told his best friend. "Do yew 'ave any ideas?"  
Evin held out the strange metal contraption to Campbell as he spoke.  
The other boy shook his head.  
"Oi don't know either, Evin," Campbell admitted. "But maybe Mister 'Olmes could tell us."  


* * *

"We'll have to split up, Mr. Spock," Erica observed, looking over the half-Vulcan's shoulder at his tricorder as she spoke.  
"We have to get both of them at the same time, else Moranus will run off with the other into another point in time and space."  
"I am aware of the possibility, Miss McCoy," Spock coolly informed Erica. "You will have to comm me once you have arrived at the place where your uncle is being held. You do have a tricorder and a communicator on your person, Miss McCoy?"  
"Yep," Erica replied, reaching into her coat pockets for the items in question.  
"Oh no," she muttered, as she discovered her tricorder was no longer in her pocket where she had put it.  
"What is it?" Spock asked.  
"My tricorder's gone," Erica groaned.  
"Did you drop it?"  
Erica shook her head.  
"I would have heard it fall, Mr. Spock," she added, as she suddenly remembered something.  
"It was stolen!" she exclaimed suddenly.  
Spock gave her his infamous "humans are so illogical" look.  
"That boy, the one who bumped into me earlier, he must have picked my pockets and took my tricorder somehow without my noticing," she clarified.  
"We must retrieve your tricorder as soon as possible, Miss McCoy," the half-Vulcan declared.


	90. Prevention

**Title: Disaster Averted**

**A/N: Warnings, alternative universe (ehc), crossover (star trek). Response to Prompt #54 Prevention. This is Part Two of Two.**

Watson looked up as two young boys burst excitedly into the sitting room of 221B Baker Street.  
"Where's Mister 'Olmes, Doctor Watson?" asked the taller of the pair, Alexander Campbell.  
"He's gone out in one of his disguises, Campbell," the doctor replied. "What is so urgent that you two felt the need to break into Baker Street?"  
"Oi found something real strange, Doctor," the other boy, Evin Mackenzie, replied, holding up a metal contraption for the doctor to see. "Oi was 'oping tha' Mister 'Olmes might be able to tell us wot it is."  
Watson frowned at the strange object.  
"May I see it?" he asked.  
"Sure, Doctor," Evin replied, handing it over to him.  
The doctor studied the strange object, made of some alien metal.  
"Where did you find this, Evin?" Watson finally asked.  
His question was greeted with silence.  
"Evin?" Watson demanded.  
"Oi nick'd it, Doctor," Evin finally admitted.  
The doctor sighed.  
"You'll have to return this to its rightful owner, Evin," he informed the irregular.  
"But wot if it's some sort o' weapon, Doctor?" Campbell asked. "Wot if it's some sort o' tool fer stealin' government secrets?"  
Watson sighed again, because he knew Campbell had a point. As long as he didn't know what it was that Evin had stolen, he could not in good conscience allow the Irregular to return what he had stolen.  
His thoughts were interrupted by forceful knocking on the front door.

* * *

"How are we going to track down a little boy in a huge city of millions, Mr. Spock?" Erica asked.  
"It's only a matter of finding your tricorder, Miss McCoy," Spock replied. "As tricorders are made of a metal alloy that hasn't been invented yet, so by scanning for that particular metal alloy, I should be able to locate it."  
"What if the boy was in the employ of Moranus, Mr. Spock?" Erica fretted.  
"If that were the case, then the Guardians would have sent us after him," Spock pointed out.  
"Assuming Moranus jumped to another time," Erica muttered darkly.  
Spock ignored her, as it was illogical to argue with anyone as stubbornly illogical as a McCoy.

* * *

Watson opened the door to find a young woman and her male escort (the man could not possibly be a blood relative, he looked nothing like her, nor could he be her spouse or fiancé, for neither one wore a ring) on the stoop.  
"Doctor John Watson, I presume," the girl remarked.  
"You have the advantage, Miss," the doctor replied. "You seem to know who I am, but I do not know you."  
"My name is Erica McCoy, and my companion is Spock."  
"Spock?" The man did not look like the sort of person who would have such a strange name.  
"Just Spock," Erica affirmed. "May we come in, Doctor?"  
"Yes, of course," the doctor replied, and he showed them into the sitting room.  
"I'm afraid you will have to wait, Miss McCoy, as Mr. Holmes is currently out," Watson informed Erica. "Unless you wish to leave your card and come back tomorrow?"  
"Tomorrow would be much too late, Doctor," Erica replied. "But perhaps you can help us?"  
"I'm a doctor, not a detective," Watson warned, "But I can see what I can do to assist you."  
Erica felt her heart twinge at the doctor's words, reminded of her uncle.  
"Something important to me was stolen today, Doctor," Erica informed him. "Something that must be returned to me as soon as possible, or the whole world will be in grave danger."  
"What sort of grave danger?" Watson asked.  
"The destruction of the world as we know it, Doctor," Erica bluntly replied.  
"I may know the whereabouts of what you're looking for, Miss McCoy," the doctor remarked, suspension growing in his mind. "What does it look like?"  
"I believe we have eavesdroppers, Miss McCoy," Spock remarked, before Erica could come up with an answer to the doctor's question that wouldn't destroy the timeline.  
Watson sighed and rolled his eyes.  
"That would be Evin and Campbell," he informed them. "Come on in, you two!"  
At the doctor's call, two street arabs entered the sitting room.  
Erica gasped as she recognized Evin as the youth who had bumped into her.  
"You!" she exclaimed. "Give it back, thief!"  
"Miss McCoy, calm yourself," Spock ordered, placing a hand on the young woman's shoulder, at the ready should he need to administer a nerve pinch. "You did not get a good look at the person who robbed you. It is illogical to accuse a stranger of theft without proper evidence to support your claim."  
"If yew promise ta not 'ave me arrested, Oi'll return yer metal box ta yew, Miss McCoy," Evin boldly declared.  
Without hesitation, Erica agreed.  
"After all," she added, "this object could cause terrible damage if Scotland Yard was involved."  
Evin freely handed the tricorder to Erica, who quickly pocketed it.  
"What is that, if I may ask," Watson asked, though his tone made his question a command.  
"I'm sorry, Doctor, but we cannot tell you that," Spock immediately replied.  
Erica, however, sympathized with Doctor Watson, knowing well the feeling of not being allowed to know things.  
"I think we could make an exception, Mr. Spock," she declared. "After all, these three know how to keep a secret as big as this one would be."  
Watson frowned, wondering what Erica meant. But Evin and Campbell both knew what the strange woman meant-Evin's true identity.  
Spock frowned at Erica, not liking the young girl's train of thought at all.  
"Trust me," Erica wordlessly mouthed to the half-Vulcan. "I know what I'm doing."  
Spock nodded, allowing Erica to tell Campbell, Evin, and Doctor Watson all about the tricorder Evin had stolen from her and about who they really were.  
"I thought medicine was pretty advanced these days, but from what you've told me, Miss McCoy, we're still in the Dark Ages," Doctor Watson observed.  
"Don't rule out the medical advances of the Victorian Era, Doctor," Erica quickly replied. "Many of the medical advances that I am familiar with are rooted in stuff you and your colleagues developed. Take Louis Pasteur for example."  
"The mad French man who came up with a vaccine for anthrax(1)?" Watson asked.  
Erica nodded.  
"His work with vaccines will eventually allow the development of a vaccine for smallpox, which will be completely eradicated long before my grandparents are born," she informed him.  
"This is a heavy burden you've given me, as a doctor, Miss McCoy," Watson said. "I know that there are treatments for diseases my patients die of more often than not, and yet I must let them die."  
"And if you don't let them die, the order of things will be destroyed," Erica reminded him. "But there is something you can do, Doctor."  
"There is?" Watson asked.  
"Joseph Lister has the right idea, when it comes to the use of antiseptics," Erica informed him.  
"I am aware of his methods, Miss McCoy, and I use them," the doctor informed her.  
"You are, but what about your patients? Particularly the ones who live in the dingy slums of London?" Erica asked. "Do they know about the importance of antiseptic? Do they know how they can help lower the rate of infection?"  
Watson held his tongue, and Erica correctly took his silence to mean no.  
"You can help your patients by teaching them basic first aid, Doctor Watson," she declared. "Teach them how to prevent infection, and you will be able to help them."  
No one spoke for a while after that, until Spock broke the silence with a declaration that they needed to leave now.

* * *

1. In 1881, Louis Pasteur publicly inoculated sheep and cattle with an attenuated anthrax culture, then injected them with a virulent anthrax culture. All the vaccinated animals lived, while the untreated ones died within three days. Source: MedHunters


	91. Companion

**Title: Life Saver**

**A/N: Warnings, alternative universe (ehc). Response to Prompt #90 Companion.**

Holmes shivered as the chill night air came in contact with the bare skin of his arm as he reached out for the life preserver a sailor had thoughtfully thrown out into the stormy seas after the detective.  
Holmes pulled the preserver towards himself, so that his precious burden could cling to it instead of strangling him. The thoughtful sailor pulled the drenched pair back on board the ship, where warmth and dry clothes awaited them.  


* * *

"How did you know I would be able to get help in time, Holmes?" Watson asked as the detective dried his hair with a towel.  
"I had no way of knowing for sure that you would get help in time, Watson," Holmes reminded his friend.  
"And yet you risked your life to rescue Elizabeth after she was swept overboard by that wave," remarked the doctor.  
"How is she, anyways?" Holmes asked, jumping at the chance to change the subject. "She must be stable enough for you to come in here and pester me about my actions."  
"She broke her arm somehow, but other than that and having swallowed half of the Atlantic Ocean, she's none the worse for her unexpected swim," Watson replied.  
"She probably broke her arm when she was swept overboard by that rogue wave, Watson," Holmes deduced.  
"That's what I was thinking when I first noticed that her arm was broken," Watson admitted.  
"What changed your mind?" Holmes asked.  
"Elizabeth herself," the doctor replied. "She was attacked by Jones himself."  
"Did he survive the wave?" Holmes asked.  
"Elizabeth wasn't sure, but she thinks that he remained on board when she was swept overboard by that rogue wave."  
"Alert the captain that Jones is loose in the ship somewhere, Watson, while I speak with Elizabeth about what happened," Holmes directed, not even waiting for Watson to acknowledge his direction, trusting the doctor to be able to do as he was told, a trust born of the two men's companionship.


	92. IllMannered

**Title: The Passage of Time**

**A/N: Warnings, alternative universe, language, time travel, cross over (Star Trek). Also, I swear by all that is holy that I don't drive like Maria Amador. However, I can not speak for the other drivers where I live, major accidents happen all too often here. Response to Prompt #55 Ill-mannered.**

Holmes and Watson found themselves in a strange world where women wore trousers and miniskirts, automobiles had seat belts by law, and pre-marital sex was acceptable behavior.  
Watson was immensely thankful that they weren't the only temporal intruders on this strange world that was the future. Well, his future, anyways.  
"Watch where you're going, _Mwanaharamu_(1)," growled the driver of the vehicle he was currently a passenger of (along with Holmes and a trio of men from even further into the future), as she violently swerved to avoid being hit by another driver.

* * *

Holmes had never heard such foul language from a woman's mouth before as Maria Amador swore in a heady blend of Spanish, English, Arabic, French, German, Russian, and several other languages the detective had never heard of in response to the mangled mess that had until recently been the rear bumper of her "mini van", whatever that signified.  
Holmes figured it was a type of automobile, but he was unable to differentiate between a mini van and a SUV.  
"Can it still drive, Miss Amador?" the leader of the other three time travelers hesitantly asked.  
"I'd be pulled over by the first cop we passed, Mr. Kirk," the woman replied, as though she hadn't been swearing just moments earlier. "Other than that, it should still work."  
"We cannot cross paths with the local law enforcement, Captain," the tallest of the trio from the future reminded Kirk.  
"We also need to be at the portal when it opens back up, Mr. Spock," Kirk replied. "And we can't get there in time on foot."  
"Too bad you guys can't take a cab," Maria remarked, eying a yellow vehicle as it drove past.  
"They still have cabs in this century?" the doctor asked.  
"Not like the ones you're used to, Doctor Watson," Maria replied with a kind smile.  
"That's a cab," McCoy added as he pointed out another yellow vehicle as it drove past.

* * *

1. Swahili, can be translated into English as "bastard", which is how it is being used in this context.


	93. Argument

**Title: Sacrifices**

**A/N: Warnings, alternative universe (ehc), spoilers (for ehc). Response to Prompt #56 Argument.**

"No."  
"There's no other option, he's made sure of it," the doctor pointed out.  
"I am not leaving you alone in a room with that man for even a second, Doctor," the tiny inspector replied, stubbornly standing his ground. "Mr. Holmes would have my hide if I allowed it."  
"That man will _kill_ Holmes if we don't agree to his terms, Lestrade," Watson insisted.  
Before the Scotland Yard inspector could respond, a sleepy voice from the couch asked, "Wot's goin' on, Doctor? 'As Sherlock returned?"  
"The good doctor here has gotten it in his head to agree to Mr. Moriarty's terms in order to save your father's life, Miss Holmes," Lestrade informed the amateur detective's adopted daughter.  
At his words, the young girl came fully awake.  
"Is this true, Doctor?" Elizabeth demanded, reminding Watson of a cobra as she fixed her gaze on him.  
"Yes," Watson admitted, "But it is the only option open to us. Your cousin is as clever as his father."  
"You can't go, Doctor, he will not honor his end of the deal," Elizabeth declared, making both Watson and Lestrade wonder whether she had only feigned sleep in order to eavesdrop on their discussion.  
"Someone has to go," Lestrade remarked. "Else Mr. Moriarty will kill Mr. Holmes."  
"Sherlock is worth more to him alive than dead, Inspector," she informed him.  
"Why then is he threatening to kill him if we don't do as he asks, Elizabeth?" Watson asked.  
"He knows that you believe him willing to kill Sherlock, Doctor," Elizabeth replied, a tinge of self-blame entering her voice as she spoke.  
"Do not blame yourself for what happened, Elizabeth, you could not have known that Angel had made you," Watson said soothingly, rightly guessing the cause of the young woman's feelings of guilt.  
Elizabeth shook her head.  
"I should never had even gone to spy on his activities in the first place, Doctor," she insisted. "I should have known better than to believe that a mere disguise would have fooled my cousin."  
"While I am inclined to agree with you, Miss Holmes," Inspector Lestrade remarked, "I must say that you shouldn't be too hard on yourself, seeing as how Mr. Holmes never objected to you spying on your cousin on those grounds. If the great Sherlock Holmes neglected to think of it, then you shouldn't be so hard on yourself for not thinking of it."


	94. Dirt

**Title: Infection**

**A/N: Here at last is the promised continuation to the response to #43 Dive (Chapter 21). Response to Prompt #82 Dirt.**

As his lungs began to burn from lack of oxygen, the detective deemed it safe enough to surface. As his head broke free of the polluted water of the Thames, he inhaled deeply, even as the doctor managed to weakly follow suit.  
"How are you doing, Doctor?" Holmes asked as the doctor struggled to keep his head up above the water.  
"I don't think," Watson gasped between involuntary gulps of river water, "that I can stay afloat under my own power for much longer, Holmes."  
Holmes looked about them desperately for something amid the debris of the demolished warehouse that Watson could use as a flotation device, but there wasn't anything both buoyant and large enough to keep the doctor afloat, when the last of the doctor's strength finally gave out and he began to sink back down below the surface.  
The detective was quick to retrieve his exhausted friend from the agony of drowning, not caring that he was risking his own chances of survival by using himself as a flotation aid for Watson. But the doctor cared for him.  
"Holmes, you can't possibly support me _a__nd_ keep your head above water," the doctor gasped. "Let me go."  
"I'm sorry, Doctor," Holmes replied, "but I can't do that."  
"Holmes, I will not have you sacrifice your life for my sake," the doctor insisted. "Now let me go!"  
Holmes sighed, realizing that there would be no changing his friend's mind this time. Of course, Holmes had ways of getting his own way, even when it came to the doctor. The detective wasn't even above playing dirty when the situation needed it.  
Holmes had recently picked up a new self-defense move, and he was eager to try it out on an unsuspecting victim, and he decided that now was as good an opportunity as any to try it out on Watson.  
Watson felt a pinch on the side of his neck, followed quickly after by the all-consuming nothingness of unconsciousness(1).

* * *

1. No, it's not the Vulcan nerve pinch, though that did inspire me to discover that it is actually possible (in theory) to knock someone out if you pinch them hard enough on the side of the neck in the right spot, temporarily cutting off blood flow to the brain.


	95. Music

**Title: Timeless Melodies**

**A/N: Warning, alternative universe (ehc). This ficlet was inspired by the providence (history) of my mom's flute, which used to belong to a professional flutist (and before you ask, I don't know his name). Response to Prompt #76 Music.**

As Watson opened the door of 221 Baker Street, he was greeted with melodious duet of flute and violin coming from the sitting room above him. Hanging his hat and coat in their customary places, noting that there was no indication that there were any guests visiting Baker Street, which mystified the doctor, for as far as he knew, none of the residents of 221 Baker Street were capable of playing the flute.  
As he opened the sitting room door at the top of the stairs, he got his answer, even as the resident musicians of 221B Baker Street, Elizabeth and Sherlock Holmes, began to play 'Silent Night'.  
As the final notes of the Germanic carol died away, Watson applauded the beautiful talents of his flatmate and his adopted daughter.  
"Happy Christmas, Doctor," Elizabeth replied, inclining her head to hide her reddening cheeks.  
"Happy Christmas, Elizabeth," replied Watson. "I was not aware that you played the flute."  
"My mom taught me how to play when I was four," Elizabeth explained. "Sherlock found her flute and gave it to me as an early Christmas gift."  


* * *

_December 12, 1978_  
"Why are we here, Mom?" the young brunette asked as she entered the pawn shop behind her mother. "I thought we were going shopping for a flute."  
"We _are_ shopping for a flute, Mar," the teenager's mother replied. "A brand new flute is very expensive, so we are going to try our luck in finding a cheaper flute here in this pawn shop."  
Mar eyed her surroundings, clearly unimpressed with the idea of getting a flute that had some stranger's germs on it.  
"We just had a flute come in, that used to belong to a famed English flutist," the owner of the pawn shop, a friend of Mar's mother, informed them. "He used it for daily practice."  
"Can I see it?" Mar asked.  
"Certainly, Miss," the man replied, before retrieving the instrument in question.  
As she studied the flute, Mar noticed that a name had been engraved on the mouthpiece-"Margaret Moriarty".  
"Who's Margaret Moriarty?" the teenager asked.  
"An ancestor of the man who I got the flute from, Moriarty was her maiden name," the shop owner replied. "The flute originally belonged to her, before it came into the possession of her daughter, whose initials are also engraved on the mouthpiece."  
Mar twisted the mouthpiece around and found "E.V.I.N.H." engraved on the side opposite the original engraving.  
"What was her name, this daughter of Margaret Moriarty?" Mar asked in idle curiosity, now glad that her mother had taken her to this shop to buy a flute.  
"Elizabeth Veronica Iris Natalie Holmes."


	96. Experiment

**Title: Void of Mind**

**A/N: Warnings, mild language, twisted POV, alternative universe (modern). This was written in the middle of the night, in case you couldn't tell. Response to Prompt #77 Experiment.**

Adrenaline flooded his veins, his heart hammering in his chest. Muscles tensed, at the ready for fight or flight, he wasn't sure which way he'd act. His mouth was drier than the desert sands, while his hands were slick with sweat. In conclusion, Sherlock Holmes was absolutely terrified.  
And who could blame him, it isn't like he _planned_ on getting abducted by a mad scientist out of some lurid Jules Verne novel.  
Especially since it was Tuesday, abductions were supposed to happen on Wednesdays, right?  
_"Holmes."_  
Was it really Tuesday, though? The detective wasn't sure. Maybe it really was Wednesday and this unplanned abduction was wholly justified...though he was sure that it wasn't the case.  
_"Damnit, Holmes, wake up!"_  
And what was with that voice? Didn't they know it was rude to interrupt?  
_"How is he, Doctor?"_  
Oh dear, it seemed as though Brother dearest had been abducted as well...what sort of experiments did this mad scientist have in mind?  
_"It's no use, he'll only wake when he's good and ready, and no sooner."  
"Well, Doctor, I do hope that he'll be good and ready pretty soon, he's the only witness to a violent murder."_  
Murder? That sounds interesting. But whose murder?  
_"Do you think he can hear us, Doctor?"  
"Probably, but only bits and pieces of conversations, if the EEG is anything to go by."_  
EEG? Whatever does that mean? Holmes figured it was just fancy doctor talk and move on with his mental wanderings.  
What did the mad scientist look like, he wondered.  
Red hair? No, it was brown. Curly? Not really. And he limped, like Watson.  
He was beginning to describe Watson, not the scientist, and that was a problem.  
_"You know, Holmes, the land lady misses you. You have to promise me that you won't tell her that I told you this, though. She'd burn my toast for a week if you did."_  
Land lady? What did Mrs. Hudson have to do with anything? Was that like the price of tea in China? He wasn't sure, but he wasn't entirely interested in asking.  
_"The doctors at the hospital think he's never going to wake up, at this rate, Mycroft."_  
Since when was Watson on speaking terms with his brother?  
"Why'd you call him 'Mycroft'?" Holmes slurringly demanded of Watson.  
"Holmes!" exclaimed his flatmate in pleased surprise.  
To the detective's chagrin, his brother wasn't even in the room.


	97. Writer's Choice I

**Title: Valentine's Day**

**A/N: Warnings, Romance, mentions of canon character deaths. I wrote this one while listening to William Shatner's 'Ideal Woman'. Response to Prompt #96 Writer's Choice (Immune).**

February 14th used to be a day to avoid "romantic" settings for the great detective Sherlock Holmes. The same went for Saturdays in April and May.  
But after his flatmate, John Watson, met Mary Morstan-a woman that Holmes had to admit was quite beautiful, though she was clearly Watson's-, Holmes found that romance was not limited to Valentine's Day and spring Saturdays.  
Nor was romance limited to settings deemed to be romantic by society, as Holmes would discover in a manner that would scar him for the rest of his life (or so he claimed).  
It had been a warm summer's day, not too hot for criminals, but too warm for romantic dates in the park.  
Or at least, that's what Holmes thought, as he walked through the park, oblivious to his surroundings as he mulled over his latest case.  
Why was Holmes thinking in the park instead of in his sitting room? Simple. Mary was visiting, and she had brought a friend.  
Holmes had snuck off convinced that the friend had only come with her to seduce him.  
"Holmes!" a voice cried out, interrupting Holmes' thoughts too late before the detective stepped right into the lake.  
"Are you alright?" Watson asked, rushing over to his friend, Mary close on his heels.  
"Depends."  
"On what, Mr. Holmes?" Mary asked.  
"Is she here with you, too?" Holmes asked.  
"Who?" Watson asked.  
"Miss Morstan's friend," the detective replied.  
"She had to go home, her eldest had fallen out of a tree," Mary replied.  
"I guess I'm alright then," Holmes declared.  
"Good, then let's go home and get you changed into a dry set of clothes, Holmes," the doctor grumbled.  
"I can dress myself, Watson," pouted the detective.  
Mary shared a knowing look with the doctor, biting her lip to keep from laughing at the drenched detective.

* * *

Holmes gritted his teeth as Watson sighed for the hundredth time like a love-sick teenage boy.  
"Watson, are you well?" he demanded.  
"I'm fine, Holmes," Watson quickly replied. But before the detective could challenge the doctor's claim, he added, "I just miss Mary, Holmes. This is only the second Valentine's Day since she died."  
"You shouldn't sulk over her death, Watson," Holmes lectured his friend. "She wouldn't like that."  
To his surprise, Watson snickered.  
"Did I say something humorous?" the detective asked, beginning to wonder if the doctor had finally lost it.  
"Not at all, Holmes, it's just that Mary pretty much said the same thing after your 'death'," he explained.


	98. Writer's Choice II

**Title: When in ROME...**

**A/N: Warnings, Crossover (NUMA Files/Kurt Austin Adventures), alternative universe (modern). Can you spot the Star Trek reference? Response to Prompt #97 Writer's Choice (Ocean).**

"I'm sorry, Mr. Holmes, but I can't allow you to accompany us on this dive," the broad-shouldered head of the National Underwater and Marine Agency's Special Assignments Team, Kurt Austin, informed the detective.  
"Why not, Mr. Austin?" Holmes fiercely demanded.  
"Because it's dangerous," Austin replied, his pristine sea-green eyes blazing with determination to destroy the man whose greed threatened millions of lives around the world, the man who currently held Doctor John Watson hostage-along with two of Austin's team-in his top secret underwater base.  
"My best friend is down there, Mr. Austin," Holmes reminded him. "I can't just sit up here on your boat and do nothing while you risk your life to save him."  
Austin thought for a moment, adjusting his rescue plan to give the detective something to do.  
"Hey, Joe!" the broad-shouldered man suddenly called out to a nearby dark-haired Latino, who had been working on a submersible the size of a small child. "Do you think Mr. Holmes here can handle ROME?"  
Joe Zavala looked over at Austin and Holmes, taking his gaze off of his latest design for NUMA, a remote-operated vehicle-or ROV-designed especially for the hostile environment of the sea floor, the Remote-Operated Marine Explorer. The marine engineer studied the detective for a moment before replying.  
"He's not who I would rather have at the controls, but he'll do," he informed Austin.  
"Show him how to operate ROME, Joe, while I brief Captain Janeway on the finer details of our rescue mission," Austin directed before leaving the detective and the marine engineer to their preparations.


	99. Writer's Choice III

**Title: The World in a Flower  
**

**A/N: Warnings, alternative universe (ehc), violence. Response to Prompt #98 Writer's Choice (Plant).**

Holmes studied the trampled remains of the flowerbeds that surrounded the house.  
"Did they trample the flowers as well as any evidence to be had on the path, Holmes?" Watson asked.  
"The flowers were like that when we got here, Doctor," Inspector Stanley Hopkins said in lieu of a greeting.  
Not that the inspector was expected to greet the detective and the doctor with a proper greeting, not at 3:30 in the morning.  
"Why take the risk of being caught to trample the flowers?" Holmes mused aloud.  
"Maybe he didn't like them?" Hopkins suggested, but the detective ignored him, having spotted something amid the trampled plants that sent his mind reeling.  
"Holmes, what is it?" the doctor worriedly asked, sensing his friend's sudden tension.  
"Watson, I need you to go back to Baker Street immediately," the detective replied.  
"Why?" the doctor demanded.  
"Do not question me, Doctor," Holmes growled, his voice taunt with suppressed fear. "Just do as I say."  


* * *

When Watson returned to 221 Baker Street, he found the front door ajar.  
"Hello?" Watson called out. "Mrs. Hudson? Elizabeth? Anyone home?"  
There was no answer, no response to his raised voice. At least, not at first. After a minute or so, Watson heard the sound of movement coming from the sitting room upstairs. The sound had been so faint, so weak that the doctor initially thought that he had imagined it. Investigation of the sound revealed a badly injured Elizabeth, drifting in and out of consciousness as she struggled to slow the flow of blood from a gaping wound in her side.  
"Elizabeth!" exclaimed Watson as he rushed to her side, his black bag somehow already at hand, its latches and handle sticky with the young girl's blood.  
"Doctor?" questioned Elizabeth, her voice thick with drowsiness from massive blood loss. "Where's Sherlock?"  
"At a crime scene, but what happened here? Where's Mrs. Hudson?" the doctor demanded.  
"She gone to get a doctor," Elizabeth replied, her anemic state causing her to carelessly disregard basic rules of grammar for an instant. "As for what happened, I was attacked."


	100. Writer's Choice IV

**Title: Do No Harm?  
**

**A/N: Warnings, crossover (Star Trek), time travel, discussions of doctor-assisted suicide and euthanasia, minor spoilers for ST: The Final Frontier. Dedicated to med_cat, who knows why this is the case. Response to Prompt #99 Writer's Choice (Oath).**

"You carry a gun, Doctor?" the older man asked-his name was Leonard McCoy, Watson reminded himself.  
"Of course I do, Mr. McCoy," the doctor replied, slightly miffed at the American's surprise at the fact. "It does not do to go about unarmed when you live with London's biggest magnet for violence."  
"How do you manage it?" McCoy pressed.  
"Manage what?" Watson asked, feigning ignorance.  
"Balance causin' harm with your gun and the Hippocratic Oath, Doctor," he clarified.  
"To be honest, Mr. McCoy, I had never thought about that," Watson admitted.  
"Do you think about killing?"  
"Bones, leave the poor man alone," McCoy's friend said in gentle rebuke. A rebuke which of course was ignored as the doctors continued their somewhat hostile conversation as though James T. Kirk had never opened his mouth.  
"I only kill when I have no other option open to me, Mr. McCoy," Watson curtly replied. "And even then, I am loathe to do it."  
"Do it? As in kill?"  
"Correct," Watson replied, wondering why this American was so against the idea of his having a gun.  
"Killin' is never as easy as they make it out to be," McCoy declared.  
Watson agreed whole-heartedly.  
"There's no taking it back once you've killed a man," the doctor added in agreement. "No matter what weapon."  
McCoy frowned at Watson's statement.  
"It sounds as though you speak from experience, Doctor," he remarked softly.  
"Unfortunately, I do, Mr. McCoy," Watson replied, a tinge of sorrowful regret entering his voice.  
"What happened?" McCoy asked, curiosity getting the better of his good manners.  
"My wife caught consumption, Mr. McCoy," Watson said, opening up to a stranger simply because he felt a sense of commonality with the man.


	101. Writer's Choice V

**Title: New Beginnings  
**

**A/N: Warnings, twisted humor. All of the OCs' names were not invented by me, but the characters themselves are mine. Response to Prompt #100 Writer's Choice (Beginning).  
**

_Peshwar, India_  
"I have great news!" proclaimed Nathan Fillion as he entered the ward he was in charge of.  
The entire ward of injured and ill soldiers, as well as the nurses tending to them, groaned at the army doctor's words.  
"What?" demanded Nathan, surprised by the reaction his words had triggered.  
"Doctor, 'great news' coming from you usually entails some uncomfortable procedure," one of the soldiers, a chap by the name of John Watson, explained.  
"Oh, well, not to fear then, lads, there's no uncomfortable procedure this time," Nathan assured the ward.  
"Then what's gotten you into such a frenzy, Doctor?" one of the nurses asked.  
"Nurse Cobb is it?" Nathan asked.  
The nurse who had spoken nodded.  
"Jayne Cobb, sir," affirmed the nurse.  
"I have just received word that a good number of you chaps are to head home on the next troop transport for London," Nathan declared, directing his words at the soldiers in his ward instead of at Nurse Cobb.  


* * *

_London, England_  
Inspector Giles Lestrade panted as he struggled to keep up with the wiry young man he'd hired to assist in catching a wily killer.  
"Come on, Inspector! Keep up! He's getting away!" the young man called back to the Scotland Yard Inspector, not even slowing down to speak.  
It would not be the last time the inspector would rue the day he first met Sherlock Holmes, not by a long shot.  
The chilling sound of gunfire ahead of him lent the inspector a second wind and he soon caught up with his younger colleague, who was standing over their suspect, a smoking revolver in his hand.  
"Is he dead, Mr. Holmes?" Lestrade panted once he had the breath to spare on speaking.  
"Use your eyes, Inspector," Holmes said in rebuke.  
Lestrade scowled at the youth, but his ire was quickly doused when he realised that the man had been shot by the revolver in his own hand, and in such a way that ruled out any possibility of being self-inflicted.  
"You're under arrest, Crowley," Lestrade informed the tall brute lying prone on the ground.  
"Wot fer?" Crowley demanded.  
"Attempted murder," Lestrade replied. "And likely for the murder of Jackson Lake and his family as well."


End file.
